Disappointment and Disgust in Clayface

Rarely am I so disappointed in a film that I experience it as a physical sensation, but I felt my stomach turn while watching Clayface. The latest entry in the Batman narrative universe created by Matt Reeves, Clayface is written by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini (both of whom have done admirable work elsewhere, so I have a lot of questions about what went wrong here) and directed by James Watkins. It stars Tom Rhys Harries in his first leading role as Matt Hagen, a Gotham-born actor on the cusp of true stardom after receiving an Oscar nomination.

Celebrating his success, Matt parties with his childhood friend and fellow—though less successful—actor Corey (Joshua James), and Matt ends up having a one-night stand with Mia (Joana Ribeiro). Bad news for Matt, Mia is the girlfriend of Gotham crime boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik), and as a consequence of sleeping with Szabo’s girl, Matt gets his pretty face slashed to ribbons. Adding insult to injury, Mia tells the media that Matt drugged her, which leads to Matt’s cancellation.

Desperate to get his life back, Matt goes to scientist Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), whose research in AI-powered nanites (nonsense words that translate to “inevitably bad tech”) leads her to inject Matt with gloop which seemingly heals his scarring and gives him back his handsome visage. This is all it takes for Matt to reclaim his good standing in society, and for a brief moment, it seems like Matt Hagen is on top again. But he quickly loses control of himself on a cellular level, his skin slipping and sliding and slooping away in truly disgusting ways. The body horror in Clayface does not quite reach Cronenberg levels, but it is satisfactorily gross for a spooky season pseudo-horror film in the superhero genre.

Worse upon worse, Matt discovers basically everyone in his life betrayed him, and he goes on a rampage, killing everyone including Mia in a disturbingly phallic manner made worse by the lingering plotline in which she falsely accused him of sexual assault. With Caitlyn now afraid of him, and his body a constantly shifting pile of sentient goo, Matt retreats to the sewers of Gotham, permanently a clay-man who can still find ways to keep eyes on Caitlyn without her knowing it, which the film seems to think is tragically romantic and star-crossed and not f-cking stalking.

Clayface clearly wants to be like Joker, using supervillains to tell a story rooted in real-life disfunction and consequences, but just like Joker, Clayface sucks at it. The cancellation storyline plagues Clayface and never resolves in a way that pays it off. There was a chance here to do something truly satirical and smart, and in the first half it seems like Clayface is setting this up, but the back half of the film is straightforward and earnest and never actually connects the threads about cancellation and how easy it is for handsome white men to work their way back into the public’s good graces. Never mind the film never does anything meaningful with Mia and the false accusation plot except serve her a truly despicable death scene.

The pieces are all there for a story about celebrity, public image, and media manipulation, but the will to actually DO it is not. Instead, we’re left with a revolting story—physically and thematically—about a wrongly accused man who suffers in every possible way, and it all starts because That Bitch Told Lies and a Beta Male Was Jealous of a True Chad. Matt Hagen becomes not a tragic anti-hero but a symbol for aggrieved white masculinity—exactly the trap Joker fell into—and the film never acknowledges how it underscores so many disgusting assumptions, beginning with Women Be Lyin’ and never looking back. In every possible way, Clayface is gross. It’s gross to look at and it’s gross to think about.

Clayface is now playing exclusively in theaters.