I was completely on board with Clayface. Before James Gunn took charge of DC’s new superhero universe, its recent films had generally felt too solemn or self-important for my taste. Gunn’s arrival suggested a lighter, more playful direction, closer to the kind of comic-book entertainment I enjoy. Then the trailers started arriving.
Directed by James Watkins, Clayface follows Matt Hagen, an ambitious Hollywood performer played by Tom Rhys Harries. After a vicious attack leaves his face covered in career-ending scars, Hagen turns to an experimental treatment. The cure produces some alarming consequences: his body begins to soften, spread and melt. It is essentially the origin story of Batman’s shape-shifting villain, presented through a particularly gruesome horror lens.
The first trailer made the film look like an intriguing contrast to the more upbeat Superman. I liked the idea of a full horror movie operating inside the same universe, and the closing shock—Hagen wiping his own face away—worked beautifully. The grotesque transformation seemed like something I could handle.
The second trailer tested that confidence. The distorted skin, the growth spreading over Hagen’s mouth and eyes, and his horrified reaction were unpleasant, but not necessarily deal-breakers. The real problem was a moment in an aircraft bathroom, where Hagen raises scissors towards the tendrils covering his eyes. The trailer cuts away before showing what happens, but I still instinctively looked away.
That felt manageable. Every horror film is allowed one scene designed to make the audience recoil, cover their eyes and collectively gasp. I could still enjoy the rest of the movie.
The third and final trailer has brought me much closer to abandoning that plan.
It revisits the bathroom mirror sequence, and I once again found myself turning away before the footage revealed anything. After that, however, the new material becomes even more disturbing. The issue is no longer only what Hagen’s changing body is doing to him, but what it does to everyone around him.
There is no suggestion that Hagen will use his abilities heroically. He is on a villain’s path. Even so, watching him force a man’s face through his own stomach to suffocate him is deeply upsetting, especially when the victim’s features visibly push out through his back.
What makes the scene worse is Hagen’s expression. He is not wearing a delighted, scheming villain’s grin. Instead, he looks devastated and tearful, as though he is horrified by his own actions. Other moments show him pressing his hands into someone’s face until it becomes a distorted mass, followed by more shots of Hagen looking utterly miserable.
That combination may be the film’s most effective horror idea—and the part I am least prepared to endure. Straightforward body horror is one thing. Body horror wrapped in grief, helplessness and visible emotional collapse is considerably harder to watch.
I still want to see Clayface. The concept remains compelling, and the film’s willingness to push into horror is refreshing. But I am now genuinely worried that the finished version will show more of the scissors sequence than the trailers do. More than the melting skin, it is Hagen’s profound sadness that has me squirming already.
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