“Clayface” (2026) is an unrelenting, gorific, standalone movie that will make the squeamish leave the theater within the first ten minutes as it leaves the gate at a breakneck speed. Actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) gets on the wrong side of Gotham mob boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik), who has his henchmen carve up the pretty boy’s face like a pumpkin before Halloween. Losing everything, Matt convinces nanotech doctor Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) to illegally experiment on him against her better judgment. Everything goes well. He returns to acting. The end. Not! As doctor and patient get closer, an unexpected side effect gives him the keys to getting revenge against those who wronged him. Is this who he is? Looks like it. Director James Watkins and cowriters Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini throw down the gauntlet as the first R rated DC Universe film with tits, blood and gore galore.
When these guys were making “Clayface,” did they have a dry erase board where they wrote anything that made them squirm and throw it into the story? The pace feels hurried but not rushed as if the house is going to foreclose in five minutes. There is a brief intro establishing Hagen as a bona fide actor, not just the next hot thing enjoying his fifteen minutes. He does not even realize the scope of what he has lost until bodies start dropping. Matt is a pretty bare bones character with some prose dump dialogue revealing info about his family and humble childhood surroundings as seeds to explain how he would be capable of turning left. Harries fleshes him out with more pathos than is likely on the page plus sitting in that makeup chair must be murder. He is pretty enough. He is nice enough. And gosh darn it, people like him. Harries’ real accomplishment is that Matt remains sympathetic even when he does something that indicates that he has turned completely evil. As a movie experience, Matt turning into Clayface is satisfying, but upon further reflection, the underlying psychological framework is underwritten. Without assumptions about actors being blank slates who can pretend to be anyone and erase themselves, it would not work.
Ackie slums it a bit and takes a break from her artsy fartsy film cred to appear in a comic book film. Lately she has been going a bit commercial, but she never allows the quality of her performances to slip. Ackie is completely convincing as a Black American woman scientist/potential love interest. She has a tricky tightrope to navigate because Caitlyn is the moral core of “Clayface,” but Ackie and Harries have loads of chemistry. While the audience was repulsed at the implication of a guy with the physical attributes of an enhanced person, they were also cheering for them together. Watkins deserves some kind of reward for having a sex scene without the characters having sex. It is hella twisted, and the fact that Caitlyn does not run screaming speaks to a level of professionalism that most would not possess. Caitlyn is the only mad scientist who may go under the radar, and it is criminal how everyone is so obsessed with the horror, that they miss the sci-fi elements of the experiment, which adds another dimension to Matt’s madness being something other than his own or pat armchair psychology theories about his upbringing. (Demerit for standing in the rain with tech.)
Without detracting from anyone’s performances, the best actor in “Clayface” is Joshua James. Who? Occasionally, some rando will put their stank on a role and standout so much in what should be a nothing, forgettable part, but they are so good that making a mental note of this person’s name feels essential. James plays Matt’s best friend, who does his duty and warns Matt about crossing Szabo. Real talk: Corey is a well written character because he is as loyal as possible without hurting himself. If Corey did something wrong, it was not being honest. James as Corey acts with his hands and does some great emotional work, but when it is time for him to play another character while acting in another role, he does so without skipping a beat. Digest that: in a short amount of time, he plays three different characters, conveys that they are different and imbues them with nuanced emotion. The entire cast does a great job and is asked to play a couple of roles in one, but he makes an impression in a shorter amount of time. James had the heaviest lift, and he handled it like a feather. He is giving Doug Jones meets David Dastmalchian vibes, but so much more.
See, Clayface is a shapeshifter and is depicted as the DC Comics equivalent of Mystique. As Matt gets a handle on his powers, half the fun is seeing the actors play their primary assigned role then playing Matt disguised as the character. It is fun and dangerous. Also, the way that he disposes of people is grody to the max and inventive. If you are still traumatized from seeing “Green Lantern” (2011) and the limited execution of the idea that a hero can do anything using his imagination, maybe the bar is super low, but it still feels nice when a movie clears it.
Speaking of surpassing prior movies, “Clayface” has the temerity to do what “One Night Only” (2026) refused to do. Introduce a scorching hot woman in a barely-there dress always threatening to have a wardrobe malfunction, a feature, not a flaw, then let it happen. Portuguese actor Joana Ribeiro gets the good sport award for playing Mia with gusto starting with a breast reveal while at the club to defiantly strutting around naked in a room full of bad guys. Ribeiro is a brassy presence. No hint of an accent. If she was uncomfortable, she did not blink. If she had a meatier role, imagine how Ribeiro would tackle it. Let’s make that happen, people.
How does “Clayface” compare to prior DC Comics film adaptations rated R: “V for Vendetta” (2005), “Watchmen” (2009), “The Suicide Squad” (2021), “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” (2021), “Joker” (2019), and “Joker: Folie a Deux” (2024)? Moving backwards, it easily clears the “Joker” franchise because it does not feel actively derivative or overwrought, and the comparison fits because these films’ protagonists are Batman villains with solo, standalone films, which would also include “Catwoman” (2004), but is rated PG-13. The rest feels like apples and oranges either because of the premise or the number of characters.
If it was not for references to Gotham, which is the equivalent of Manhattan in the Seventies, it would be easy to not associate “Clayface” with DC Comics. Needle Heights, which feels like New Jersey with the hyper industrialized atmosphere, is where Matt is from and returns after his career takes a nosedive. Coast City is Hollywood, and the Hollywood substitute drenched in sunlight. If this movie has a flaw, the texture of the landscape feels CGI-esque. Cinematographer Rob Hardy does an effective job with the colors of the atmospheric lighting during the on-the-ground scenes, so that aspect of the landscape feels more authentic. Production designer James Price put his foot in it with the Vesuvius denouement scene, which was perfect and had some features of “The Shining” (1980).
Every other critic is going to reference “The Substance” (2024) or David Cronenberg’s early body horror work, but those comparisons ask, “is “Clayface” a horror movie?” Considering the plethora of psychological horror films with no scares, yes, it definitely is. It is interesting that unlike the protagonist in “The Substance,” he wants to be himself, not better or different, which is hilarious because based on earlier scenes, he did not have much of a self. He lived to work, receive accolades, enjoy the perks, but was still fairly decent to the hoi polloi. Losing his face means a trip back to the ghetto, his birthplace, which seems extreme considering there were not other stops on the way down from the top. If anything, the problem is the lack of integration with embracing and tackling the past into the privilege of the present. If “Clayface” is horror, it is a critique of the limits of the American dream and hollowness of existence other than things, which makes it a perfect complement to “Possible Love” (2026). It is also interesting because the cast is predominantly British actors and shot in Britain and Croatia. The call is coming from across the pond.
If you are the kind of person who could barely watch medical procedure television shows like “ER” because of the graphic surgical scenes, paying for “Clayface” is like an exercise in futility. You are going to tap out early or spend most of the film shielding your eyes. Even if you are a fan of gore, because it is fairly realistic, you may find it challenging. It does not let up. If your curiosity is peaked, you are in for a good time and will definitely be begging for more.
