Batman: The Animated Series was a formative piece of media for me. It was a great companion piece to the comics and Tim Burton Batman movies I grew up with. Though, the animated series has managed to age better than both. While obviously the series focused on the titular hero, it really introduced me to the greatest rogues gallery out there. Feat of Clay was the two-part episode that focused on a former movie star, now cursed with a body of clay, all in an effort to hold onto his fame and youth. It’s among my favorite stories in the show.
So now here we are with the third movie in the revamped DCU. Clayface somehow got a solo villain origin movie just after Superman and Supergirl get their movies. It doesn’t make sense, but I can appreciate a studio taking a risk and changing it’s format and audience.
In Clayface, Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is at the top of his game in Hollywood. But we don’t see him for long before he’s cut up by mobsters in Gotham. He loses his looks and a fair amount of his sanity in short time. In order to get his star back to where it was, he recruits an experimental doctor (Naomi Ackie) to use her risky Nano-cell therapy to restore his face at any cost. The process goes well….until it doesn’t. And it doesn’t help that he takes every opportunity to get revenge on the mob that cost him everything.
The biggest marketing point for this movie is that it’s body horror that reveres The Fly and The Substance. Also, the Halloween season seems like the perfect time to release DC’s attempt at a horror movie. It earns its R Rating by delivering a fair amount of blood, mangled transformations, and a bit of spicy content to justify itself as a comic book villain movie that takes itself seriously. It can get quite gross and had me nearly look away once (I hate eye injuries in every way).
However, the body horror that was advertised was either used heavily in the trailers or feels hollow because it’s largely noticeable CG. And it’s some pretty lousy CG. Yes, this is considered to be a “low budget” movie. Somehow, a near $50 million dollar movie is low budget now. But that budget feels like it would give plenty of leeway for some decent transformations or even solid practical effects, but it doesn’t. 90% of the times his face changes to another, it’s just due to a cut away. And truly, in the scenes where they show the face change, it looks equivalent to someone turning on a social media face filter and the app is trying to keep up with the face on screen.
I’d like to apologize to the Shudder streaming channel in advance. Clayface truly feels like a movie that was filmed for the service, but because DC is throwing mud at the wall, they somehow decided to release it on the big screen. Everything about this feels less than. There’s very little artistry to the camerawork. Also, the script is rushed and feels like an afterthought. The middle hour is sluggish and isn’t helped by the lack of chemistry with any of the actor pairings.
The story here is beyond predictable and doesn’t hold any tension. Even though I want characters like Hagen to be as villainous as he’s purported to be, I still want to feel like there’s a real danger for him. Yet, there’s no real emotional weight or stakes to his character. There’s a ill-fated romance angle to he and the doctor, but it’s one-dimensional and doesn’t have room to breathe.
Clayface is the broken clock that’s right twice in a day, as there are elements that I enjoyed. Tom Rhys Harries is a very capable actor and he is impressive in the role. He proves this by acting beyond a weaker script. There’s a deterioration for his character, Matt Hagen, both mentally and physically. And while the script doesn’t care to add any layers to him, he shoulders the weight of this in his performance. Another positive I really enjoyed was the beginning of the final act and a specific nightclub scene. It’s action packed and injects some much needed energy to the movie.
Clayface doesn’t work as a horror movie, as it’s not scary. It’s a revenge thriller that seems more designed as a background streaming movie. Yet, it’ll barely worth watching when it gets to streaming. The only point for this movie existing is to make DC look busy during a corporate merger. I’d like to eventually see the movie where the D-list villains who got their own movies without their famous heroic rivals all meetup for a support group. I can see it now. “My name is Clayface and this is my first time here.” Morbius, Madame Web, Kraven: “Hi Clayface…” D+
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