‘Clayface’ Review: DC Studios’ Batman Villain Origin Story Is a Bona Fide Body-Horror Delight

Maybe we’ve been going about this comic book movie thing all wrong. Sure, it’s fun to watch films about the heroes, whether it’s Superman, Batman or Spider-Man. But sometimes it’s a lot more rewarding to explore the dark side. That turns out to be the case for DC Studios’ latest effort, representing a big swing that definitely pays off.

Concentrating on one of Batman’s little-known if longest-running villains — he made his debut way back in 1940 — Clayface emerges as one of the year’s big surprises. More a horror film than a comic book movie — body horror, to be precise — it’s also perfectly timed to cash in on the current mania of audiences looking for a scary good time.

Little-known Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries (Kandahar, The Return), for whom this film should be a major stepping stone, plays the title role, although it takes a long time for the character to fully assume the titular moniker. At first, he’s handsome young movie star Matt Hagen, whose career is currently riding hot with an Oscar nomination. Making a brief trip to his native Gotham before production of his next movie begins, Matt makes the mistake of succumbing to the advances of a gorgeous young woman on the dance floor of a nightclub.

Waking up the next morning with her lying next to him naked in bed, Matt discovers several uninvited guests, including the woman’s boyfriend Markos Szabos (David Dencik), Gotham’s crime kingpin. Markos takes revenge by slicing up Matt’s face with a switchblade, leaving him horribly disfigured and his acting career essentially over.

Finding no legal recourse in a city with a crooked police department and judiciary, Matt gives in to despair. Until he hears about Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a brilliant scientist whose groundbreaking nanotechnology research was ripped off by her financial backers. She reluctantly agrees to use her skills to restore Matt’s features, with such amazing results that Matt is soon able to crash a red carpet and announce that he’s back.

Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned, since his face has an alarming tendency to collapse when he’s under emotional stress. Returning to Caitlyn, he takes the liberty of injecting himself with a megadose of her formula. And as anyone who’s ever seen a science-fiction movie knows, megadoses have a way of backfiring.

Matt soon discovers that he can now transform his face at will, instantly morphing into whomever he wants to appear as. It’s a skill that proves particularly useful when it comes to confronting those who betrayed him, including his former business manager (a suitably smarmy Eddie Marsan) and his best friend (Joshua James), who refused to testify on his behalf.

The screenplay co-written by the currently white-hot Mike Flanagan (Carrie, the upcoming The Exorcist: Martyrs) and Hossein Amini (The Wings of the Dove, Drive) smartly delineates Matt’s devolution, both physically and emotionally, as his growing anger and desire for revenge bring him to the brink of madness. He nonetheless remains a likable and sympathetic figure, thanks in large part to Harries’ charismatic, engaging screen presence, while the growing friendship/flirtation between Matt and his doctor contributes to the film’s emotional impact.

Also well drawn is the relationship between Caitlyn and her longtime fiancé John (Max Minghella), one of Gotham’s few uncorrupt cops who happens to be investigating the string of murders that follow in Matt’s wake. Aware of the growing closeness between Caitlyn and her troubled patient, John keeps an indulgent but wary eye on them even as his suspicions about Matt’s role in the deaths grow.

Director James Watkins (Eden Lake) does a superb job with the film’s body-horror aspects, which are definitely not for the squeamish, beginning with the cutting up of Matt’s face and the plastic surgery that ensues. Utilizing superb practical effects to a large degree, in addition to CGI, Clayface is the sort of pleasurable gross-out experience that will have audiences turning their eyes and shifting in their seats while loving every minute. One sequence, in which Matt desperately tries to cut away skin that has started to cover his eyes while in an airplane lavatory during severe turbulence, is a master class in cinematic tension.

And the filmmaker really outdoes himself with a major set piece toward the end, when Matt enters a crowded nightclub in search of Markos and wreaks murderous havoc while shape-shifting from one persona to another. Brilliantly orchestrated and filmed, the scene also provides the opportunity for many of the film’s supporting players to have their moments in the spotlight when Matt assumes their identities.

With its grimy visuals and pulpy dialogue redolent of comic books in the most evocative way, Clayface delivers the sort of psychological depth and emotional resonance that enable it to bear comparisons to the works of such body horror maestros as David Cronenberg and Sam Raimi.