Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Mae Abdulbaki | Film | October 26, 2026
It’s so nice to have a film set in the same universe and city that Batman calls home, but isn’t about the Caped Crusader at all. We’re still patiently waiting for The Batman: Part II, which has faced several delays since The Batman’s 2022 release. In the meantime, we’ve got Clayface to tide us over. The film follows the titular character’s villainous origins. The film goes in a different direction genre-wise. Directed by James Watkins from a screenplay written by Mike Flanagan, who famously penned horror series like Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House, and Hossein Amini, Clayface is a fascinating body horror that at least attempts to do something different.
Before he was the shapeshifting Clayface, he was Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), an Oscar-nominated actor on the brink of superstardom. But he gets his face disfigured by powerful Gotham City mob boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik) after Matt sleeps with his girlfriend Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro). That big acting career Matt was so excited about? Gone. His life? Ruined. He’s pushed out of the public eye while Szabo’s manager, played by Eddie Marsan, convinces Matt, who doesn’t realize the connection, to sign a power of attorney and proceeds to steal all his money.
Matt is desperate to get his life and career back, so he reaches out to Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomie Ackie), a scientist whose research involves nanites to heal degenerative diseases. After overdosing on the treatment, Matt develops the ability to transform into anyone he wants, giving him the power to exact revenge on Szabo. It becomes the biggest and most important performance of the actor’s life.
When Clayface is leaning into its body horror elements, it’s fantastic. A scene involving Matt cutting open his eyelids inside a turbulent plane bathroom is particularly gruesome. When he makes a red carpet appearance—his face seemingly healed—and stuns the cast and paparazzi, the tension is palpable. It’s almost like watching a ticking clock, waiting for the moment when things fall apart for Matt, who oscillates between being a tragic character and a vengeful one. He becomes so psychologically unstable by the film’s ending that it’s almost a surprise we felt any sympathy for him to begin with.
But while the body horror is truly terrific, Clayface stumbles when it comes to the exploration of its many themes. It’s a dark story about the rise and fall of an actor, and how quickly fame, career, money, and even relationships—like Matt’s friendship with Corey (Joshua James)—can crumble overnight. Nothing about Matt’s world is stable, not even his growing feelings for Caitlyn, whose sympathy for Matt turns into fear and is reflective of the audience’s own emotional journey. The film also touches upon the predatory systems in place that make it difficult for someone like Matt, who was raised poor, to seek justice. Power doesn’t last very long and is just as fleeting as fame.
And yet the horror doesn’t truly delve into any of these aspects. It’s almost content to rely on our sympathy for Matt, even as it burns out the closer the film gets to the end. Don’t get me wrong, a good revenge thriller can be exciting and intense, but the more vengeful Matt gets, and the closer he gets to becoming Clayface, the further away the story gets from its themes and horror elements. It turns into a run-of-the-mill story about a man going after those who wronged him and loses any nuance in the process.
Harries and Ackie are great together, though, and it’s their relationship that grounds the film and underscores its stakes. Their relationship is the only one that offers any emotional investment; Matt’s friendship with Corey quickly loses its steam, flattening the developments that are meant to shock us later on. Perhaps if the film had explored Matt’s life more, the changes he suffered would have been more deeply felt.
Despite the tonal unevenness, Clayface is chilling and never dull. It dares to do something different and takes risks that a lot of movies set in the superhero world don’t. To that end, it can be considered a success. Even if it doesn’t dig past the surface to get its point across, there’s enough here that works, and its body horror is interesting, disturbing, and effective. And while the first three-quarters of the film are a contrast to the pervasive, one-note aggression of the last quarter, it’s still a solid horror movie worth seeing.
Clayface is now playing in theaters.
