{"id":809763,"date":"2026-10-21T23:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809763\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T23:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:56:09","slug":"watching-clayface-is-like-eating-play-doh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809763\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching ‘Clayface’ Is Like Eating Play-Doh"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe rogue\u2019s gallery of Batman<\/a> villains has a deep bench, and given that a certain Clown Prince of Crime received not one <\/a>but two solo outings<\/a> and Gotham\u2019s waterfowl-related kingpin got his own prestige-TV drama<\/a>, it makes sense to start pulling out other MVP bad guys for side projects. Personally, we might have gone with a few other first-stringers before landing on Clayface, a character whose name goes back to 1940s Batman comics. The original was simply an actor moonlighting as a criminal; the better-known version was introduced in the Fifties, a shape-shifter who could take on anyone\u2019s appearance but usually presented as a giant, hulking lump of clay. In terms of Hall of Fame status, he\u2019s somewhere between Killer Croc and Solomon Grundy. (IYKYK.) <\/p>\n

\n\tBut Mike Flanagan \u2014 longtime Stephen King fanatic, current Carrie reinterpreter<\/a>, future caretaker of the Exorcist franchise<\/a> \u2014 had the idea of using this DC Comics deep cut to anchor a potential body-horror movie. Brand new co-CEO of DC Studios James Gunn happened to dig Flanagan\u2019s pitch, and greenlit a film that would serve as a showcase and a likely introduction of the malleable maniac to the rebooted cinematic universe\u2019s live-action world. (Clayface is already part of the animation side of the house<\/a>.) Long story short, Flanagan had to drop out. Writer Hossein Amini (Drive) and director James Watkins (Eden Lake) were brought in. The project went ahead as planned, having the bad fortune to hit screens at a moment when the revamped DC franchise finds itself in a bit of a quality-control pickle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tClayface is not going to reverse that trajectory. In fact, this attempt to have it both ways \u2014 a horror movie set in the DC universe, and a DC universe movie that hopes to attract the horror-fan crowd \u2014 may have knocked things down a peg or three. Only time will tell whether this is truly a stand-alone experiment in genre mixing and matching or something designed to thread the big lug into the bigger cinematic picture. Yet we can confirm that watching this intriguing-on-paper chronicle of a Batman supervillain once again recast as a tragic antihero, one who\u2019s dealing with the psychological fallout of his newly batshit physical state, is the equivalent of eating a handful of Play-Doh, and twice as flavorless.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tMovie star Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is on top of the world. He\u2019s young, handsome, and has just been nominated for an Oscar. Jetting over to Gotham City for a quick talk show appearance to promote an upcoming project, Hagen and his fellow actor\/childhood best friend Corey (Joshua James) decide to hit the clubs. A woman in a slinky dress starts dancing with him. She\u2019s Mia (Joana Ribeiro), the girlfriend of Gotham\u2019s current reigning gangster Markos Szabo (David Dencik). Turns out that Matt messed around with the wrong moll. A razor blade gets unsheathed. Soon, pretty boy ain\u2019t so pretty no more.<\/p>\n

\n\tHagen\u2019s career takes a nosedive. Everyone is scared to testify against Szabo, so his legal case is dismissed. Broke, friendless, and hideously scarred, Hagen gets a dingy apartment in the bad neighborhood he grew up in, and essentially goes into hiding. He happens to come across an article on Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie, doing the best she can), a scientist working with nanotechnology. She\u2019s never experimented on humans before, but Corr takes pity on this sad sack. A series of treatments over several months restores Hagen to his formerly gorgeous glory. It\u2019s comeback time, baby!<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are a few side effects, naturally. Hagen seems to have incredible healing powers. When he gets angry, he has the ability to rearrange his appearance and resemble anyone imaginable. His face is once again highly photogenic, but the skin on his matinee-idol mug\u2026 let\u2019s just say it\u2019s unstable at times, and occasionally droops, sags, or altogether melts off his jawline like hot wax. Oh, and it\u2019s slowly curdling Hagen\u2019s mind as well, notably when he finds out that Corey sold him out and that his old business manager (Eddie Marsan) is now working for Markos. He has these newfound gifts. Why not use them for some good, old-fashioned payback?<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tNaomi Ackie in \u2018Clayface.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWarner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll those Cronenbergian elements \u2014 The Fly vibes are strong with this one, especially when things start going south \u2014 butt up against the comic-book bits of business in ways that suggest an arranged marriage over a passionate genre hook-up. Watkins and co. set up a few creepy scenes and possibly fertile scenarios, then have a tendency cut away too soon or simply seem to lose interest; why you would not take full advantage of a turbulent flight, a pair of scissors and someone\u2019s eyelids being goopily melded shut in terms of an extended showstopper, as opposed to a blink-and-miss set piece, is a mystery. Every so often, Corr\u2019s police-detective fianc\u00e9 (Max Minghella) reminds us that he works for Gotham City PD, or someone namedrops Coast City, a.k.a. the O.G. Green Lantern\u2019s hometown. You could easily take those references out, and just find yourself occasionally being grossed out in between Hagen\u2019s pity parties, rage spirals and romantic mooning for his now-quite-concerned scientific savior.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat Clayface must rise and fall on its own merits, and is not necessarily as something attached to some unwieldy serialized narrative arc, becomes both a feature and a bug. At this point, no one needs more superhero films that exist merely to set up some coming-soon chapter. Nor do we necessarily need to suffer through a slightly chintzy horror flick about a guy going full Brundlefly, while changing identities willy-nilly in the name of righteous vengeance. Which is really what you\u2019re left with: a rather generic, cut-rate take on a now familiar formula that still feels like a franchise placeholder. Clayface, the poor, doomed guy destined to give the Caped Crusader a lot of agita down the line (or not!), can transform himself into anything he wants. Clayface the movie can\u2019t even seem to morph into the only thing it needs to be: a mildly satisfying piece of entertainment. Suddenly, Supergirl<\/a> doesn\u2019t look so bad now, does it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rogue\u2019s gallery of Batman villains has a deep bench, and given that a certain Clown Prince of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17349,96,59,951,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-batman","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-superman","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}