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Technically, Clayface<\/em> \u2014 based on the DC character\u2019s adventures in print \u2014 is a comic-book movie. And sure, it\u2019s set in Gotham City, and there\u2019s mention of a \u201cclown\u201d here and there. But this is a film that requires no previous DC Universe knowledge \u2014 only a strong stomach.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Tom Rhys Harries, an actor whose star is on the rise, plays Matt Hagen, an actor whose star is on the rise. Charming, handsome and newly award-nominated, Matt has everything going for him. That is, until he sleeps with a mobster\u2019s girlfriend, and receives a horrifying comeuppance \u2014 his chiselled, screen-ready face is sliced to pieces. Matt loses his roles and his agent, and throws good money after bad on surgery that leaves him scarred and unrecognisable.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Desperate to regain his face, and the fame and fortune it brought him, Matt turns to experimental scientist Caitlyn Corr (Mickey 17<\/em> and Blink Twice<\/em>\u2019s Naomi Ackie), and volunteers as a human-trial test subject for her nanocell technology, designed to regenerate damaged tissue. It works, sort of, but also unleashes a whole host of disturbing side effects that send Matt into a violent spiral.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Clayface<\/em> is a continuation of James Gunn and Peter Safran\u2019s new DC Universe, the third big-screen entry after 2025\u2019s Superman<\/em> and this year\u2019s Supergirl<\/em> \u2014 but is pitching itself very differently in tone and genre to the previous movies. Both of those were PG-13, cape-wearing superhero romps; Clayface<\/em> is a bleak, bloody character-study-slash-origin-story, earning its R rating through balls-to-the-wall body horror. Think the meta-acting narrative of A Different Man<\/em> meets the outlandish, escalating gore of The Substance<\/em>, plus a sprinkle of the Polyjuice Potion scenes in Harry Potter<\/em>, and you\u2019re pretty much there.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Tom Rhys Harries feels like the perfect subject for all of it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n The initial attack on Matt comes very early, with not as much build-up as you\u2019d think but plenty<\/em> of impact, the overhead shot of chief wrong\u2019un Markos Szabo (David Dencik) slashing the star\u2019s mouth with a penknife (just one of several Joker-esque visual nods) as he\u2019s pinned down truly wince-inducing. But with that, the nastiness is only just getting started. There\u2019s fleshy surgical stuff; a watch-through-your-fingers plane bathroom scene involving half-closed eyes and nail scissors; an unexpected spine extraction; a stand-out nightclub massacre sequence; and enough face-melting to put you off ever watching The Great Pottery Throw Down<\/em> again. Director James Watkins (who most recently impressed with his James McAvoy-starring version of social-boundary-pushing thriller Speak No Evil<\/em>) really is pulling no punches, employing remarkable prosthetics and genuinely new-feeling CG bodily transformations to make every cut, peel and stab as visceral as possible.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Harries feels like the perfect subject for all of it: his big eyes, high cheekbones and sharp jawline are both a vessel for Matt\u2019s star quality on talk shows and red carpets, and an ideal canvas on which his artificially intelligent new cells wreak havoc. We\u2019re not given much time to get to know pre-attack Matt, and his descent into mushy madness happens at pace, but Harries manages to make even the most unlikely character swings feel convincing. His connection with Ackie\u2019s sincere, empathetic Caitlyn (who is given even less dimension and development than Matt) is crucial to keeping you invested, and the film keeps that at the forefront during all of Matt\u2019s ups and downs.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n But all that brilliant body horror can\u2019t quite make up for Clayface<\/em>\u2019s script being so \u2014 aptly \u2014 skin-deep, especially in its exploration of the themes behind its protagonist\u2019s many transformations. Its recent forebears feel like they explored similar terrain more successfully: The Substance<\/em> was a powerful examination of the pressure of adhering to conventional beauty standards; A Different Man<\/em> interrogated what makes someone attractive, inside and out.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Clayface<\/em> gets nowhere close to this level of thought-provoking, instead adhering to the tired trope of visible facial differences being feared, reviled, something to cure or hide. It is Matt\u2019s differences that become his power, eventually \u2014 but this is a villain story, after all, and any catharsis is experienced via Matt\u2019s quest for revenge rather than any kind of empowerment. Remove its fleshy, liquescent mask, and you\u2019ll not find a lot of memorable meat underneath, but at least Clayface<\/em>\u2019s brutal exterior offers savage delights.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n While Clayface disappoints with its lack of depth, it absolutely delivers a strong lead performance from Harries, and buckets of bloodthirsty body horror.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After being mutilated by a Gotham crime boss, actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) seeks treatment to get his face back. Technically, Clayface \u2014 based on the DC character\u2019s adventures in print \u2014 is a comic-book movie. And sure, it\u2019s set in Gotham City, and there\u2019s mention of a \u201cclown\u201d here and there. But this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-47"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15716,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714\/revisions\/15716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Clayface\"](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/clayface.jpg\")
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