‘Clayface’ Review: A Promising Body-Horror Nightmare Gets Lost in the Mud
Patience is a virtue. Clayface — Mike Flanagan’s longtime passion project he pitched to DC Studios many times through WB’s numerous leadership transitions (releasing as the first post-Skydance merger release…shit) — would’ve benefitted from some patience. He wrote several drafts for a standalone horror-thriller, and it was in development for so long that by the time it got greenlit at the tail end of 2024, Flanagan was committed to his Carrie series and his upcoming The Exorcist: Martyrs flick, filming back to back. What was fast-tracked to production should’ve been put on the back burner for his return because James Watkins’ underwhelming, misguided take makes what could’ve been a fun revenge body-horror crime flick lose shape.
Photo | Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
MPA Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity and brief drug use.)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 48 Minutes (108 minutes)
Language: English
Production Companies: DC Studios, 6th & Idaho Productions, The Safran Company
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: James Watkins
Screenwriters: Mike Flanagan, Hossein Amini
Cast: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, David Dencik, Nancy Carroll, Joshua James, Francesca Corney, Ruby Sear, Wil Coban, Joana Ribeiro
U.S Release Date: October 23, 2026
Actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is on top of the world; he’s about to star in a musical production and just received an Oscar nomination. But when he sleeps with the girlfriend (Joana Ribeiro) of mob boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik), he disfigures his face, cutting it up his cheeks, forehead, and even the side of his mouth, leaving it dangly. If that’s not enough, he orchestrates a smear campaign. Matt’s lawyer (Eddie Marsan) betrays him, his best friend (Joshua James) and agent (Nancy Carroll) abandons him, and a rigged civil suit leaves him broke. After six failed procedures, Matt turns to biotech scientist Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), whose nanocell treatment — should’ve called it Nanoplasty — heals his face and lets him reshape his appearance at will. Slowly but surely, he uses his newfound abilities to wage a vengeful killing spree against Szabo’s empire, drawing the attention of Caitlyn’s fiancé, cop John Borrelli (Max Minghella), who begins connecting the murders to a single source.
Clayface is a villain movie stuck in a generic crime thriller.
Caption: TOM RHYS HARRIES as Matt Hagen in DC Studios’ “Clayface,” a Warner Bros. Pictures Release.
Clayface shares more in common with a Sony Spider-Man villain movie, telling a standalone story without the superhero linked to them. I would say Joker, but that had more Batman iconography embedded. Clayface lives in its own self-contained, non-Batman bubble. This time, Gotham is Liverpool and WB London retrofitted, despite every actor having to do their best American accents.
Besides watching his gradual transformation from his pure apple heart turn rotten, quenching his thirst for revenge, Hagen is not an interesting character. The elements of his tortured soul and inner desire for emotional control, bears similarity to any del Toro production, but mines little detail about Hagen or any underlying motif to give further weight. Harries does a fine job weaponizing his charisma and charm, especially as he furthers down unsettling seedy behavior. Naomi Ackie and Max Minghella — who have been in some of their finest work in recent memory with I Love Boosters and Industry season 4, respectively, this past year — try to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear to no avail, to fault of the material. Flanagan and Hossein Amini (Drive, The Snowman), who redrafted the initial script, stick to revenge and crime tropes to the point of dullness, hampered by atrocious dialogue. The film sometimes leans into a strange and fun personality, though it’s sporadic. It actively feels as if Amini’s redraft and Flanagan’s original treatments are at war, with the latter clawing out of the mediocre muck the redraft sinks into.
Clayface takes a promising monster and leaves it half-formed.
Caption: (l-r) TOM RHYS HARRIES as Matt Hagen and NAOMI ACKIE as Caitlyn Corr in DC Studios’ “Clayface,” a Warner Bros. Pictures Release. | Photo Credit: Photo by Parisa Taghizade
James Watkins has never done body horror; his style is more suspense and shock-based gory violence. That mismatch is evident. Beyond Matt’s physical assault, Watkins emphasizes making you squirm with self-harming imagery, playing with overly detailed blood effects as Matt cuts himself to test his clay power, or when his clay takes control over his body. It’s a lot of self-inflicted close-ups of knife and blade play, far from what one should want in a Clayface flick.
The bigger the kills, the more Watkins obscures the production costs. Some SFX grounds the horror, yet its few and far between. All the unsettling facial horror elements seen in the trailer are kind of what you get. If you want to see Matt deliver some cool clay-talities, too bad, Watkins is playing a game of “hide the budget.” The infamous spiked mace he uses to deliver death at one triumphant moment is relegated to a shadow on the wall, only to see the bloody aftermath. Poorly rendered CG effects hamper the film, making even his instant transformations lack real suspense or interesting visuals. Clayface is a “we have The Substance or The Fly at home” movie, yet they cost a fraction of this budget and boast unforgettable practical effects. It could’ve been a showcase for classic B-movie craftsmanship all the way through, but it refuses to deliver the satisfaction.
By the end, Clayface is a disappointment. It’s sturdy potential, instantly is bogged down by cheap direction and mediocre writing that fails to take shape for horror or Batman fans alike. Hell, seeing “A Skydance Corporation” attached to the WB Pictures logo at the end was the most frightening image this whole film bears. Even in his final form, Matt Hagen looks better than David Ellison.
