Jonah Naplan   October 23, 2026

James Gunn’s new DC Universe has worked incredibly hard so far to reinvent a beloved comic book world from the ground up. The results haven’t quite bat 1.000, with this past June’s “Supergirl” being a cosmic letdown and tanking at the box office, but lo and behold, the franchise has made its comeback with a vengeance in “Clayface,” a deliciously R-rated portrait of a villain that takes as much pleasure in its gore as it does in its origin story framework. Coming to us from writer Mike Flanagan, the brilliant mind behind several contemporary horror movies and miniseries, the film feels cut from the same cloth as so many all-timer influences, including Jeff Goldblum’s “The Fly,” the Oscar-winning “Joker,” and even the recently acclaimed “The Substance.” And yet, it’s still very much its own vile thing, molded from someone’s own twisted imagination, not a franchise checklist.

Directed by James Watkins (“Speak No Evil”), the movie takes perhaps one of the more lesser-known Caped Crusader villains and grounds him in a film that has no time for his masked vigilante enemy. Indeed, “Clayface” feels a lot more like an entirely standalone monster movie about a man who makes one small mistake that costs him everything, spiraling him into an agent of self-destruction and chaos. Despite taking place in the infamous Gotham City, the movie’s isolation from everything else reflects its principal character’s own feelings of monstrosity as Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), an A-list actor who was once on top of the world, transforms into something sinister.

After flirting with the wrong woman at the club one night, Hagen gets inadvertently tied up with the city’s reigning mobster Markos Szabo (David Dencik), whose goons cut up his face after discovering him in bed with the crime lord’s girlfriend, Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro). Soon, Hagen roams the streets of Gotham completely unrecognizable, as multiple surgeries failed to revive the countenance that acted as his career’s biggest money-maker. At times, “Clayface” seems to want to examine the biases of an industry that will totally disregard talent in favor of a prettier face, but it only teases getting into that territory before backing away. Instead, Flanagan opts for a biochemical solution: desperate for a speedy recovery, Hagen seeks out a cutting-edge scientist named Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), who’s invented a cosmetic technology that will accelerate his cell processes and mend his wounds within weeks.

The treatment works wonders for a little while, until he attends the premiere of a new musical he was supposed to star in, and his face starts sagging and drooping all over in front of an astonished crowd. Utterly freaked out, he rushes back to Corr’s lab and injects himself with an unauthorized serum overdose; the results this time are infinitely more severe, resulting in some sickly creative sequences, including a stand-out episode on an airplane that had this critic squirming in his seat. The basis for a lot of the gross-out horror is Hagen’s discovery that he possesses accelerated healing, so best believe he cuts himself all over just to watch his skin and blood restore itself in an instant.

“Clayface” is both partly a revenge story, as Hagen embarks on a quest to triumph over those who wronged him—including his former business manager Frank Fitzpatrick (Eddie Marsan) who abandoned him post-incident, and his best friend Corey (Joshua James), who started taking up the roles that Matt was supposed to play—and a romance, as an unlikely attraction begins to bloom between Hagen and Corr. Complicating that matter is the fact that Caitlyn does have a fiancé, a straight arrow police officer named John (Max Minghella), who is leading the investigation into all of the gruesome murders popping up around Hagen’s life. Similar to Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” this film is darkly layered, and convincingly set in a Gotham that’s real and dangerous, and the city, too, plays a role in the third act once Hagen sets out to paint the town red. You never know what new threat is gonna come around the next corner.

Where “Clayface” stumbles is in its boundaries. I don’t mean in its insanity—Watkins gets so gleefully unhinged here at times that you wonder if he’d ever consider making an “Evil Dead” movie—but in the narrative rules (or lack thereof) that the film sets up. By the time Hagen arrives at Club Vesuvius at the bloody climax of the movie, he seems practically invincible, being that it’s never established what his newfound abilities can’t do, and new things keep getting added on that they can do. The club sequence itself is a masterclass in deception, as Hagen is able to change his physical appearance and take the form of different people in order to evade suspicion from Szabo’s goons. The stakes of the third act get largely relieved when it becomes clear that Hagen is a force that cannot be stopped by anything.

Still, none of this negates just how good Harries is here, who has spent most of his career sidelined to supporting roles, but will surely get more leading ones after this movie. His chemistry with Ackie is similarly excellent, and both actors’ ability to live in a morally gray zone and become unlikable when they need to is something most modern comic book movies are afraid to reckon with. The supporting cast, too, is filled out by a dedicated ensemble that makes this world feel dangerously lived-in. We believe that there is a whole world of conservative doctors who tried and failed to restore Hagen’s mangled face, and that Corr was the overlooked mastermind who could save him. We also believe in this movie’s scientific logic, and that when, indeed, Hagen spins out of control, his ultimate transformation into the real “Clayface” is scarily credible.

There’s always the hope that audiences will go and support projects that aren’t a direct sequel to anything (original comic book influence notwithstanding), even if this movie’s slow burn is sure to turn some viewers off. But I do hope that recognition will be given to a film with remarkable practical effects and characters that serve the objectives of this story alone, not that of an entire extended universe. If anything, I actually think that the movie could have gotten a little messier and dwelled in vulnerable territory for a little while, even if it ended up being a big swing and a miss. After all, the movie’s called “Clayface,” but the guy’s a little too rock-solid for his own good.

Now playing in theaters.