One of Gotham’s most tragic figures is finally getting his own movie. DC’s Clayface is heading somewhere much darker than most comic book adaptations dare to go.
The horror thriller stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, a rising Hollywood actor. A brutal attack leaves him disfigured and his life comes apart. This is not another costumed antagonist. The film is built around the pain, the obsession and the mind coming loose behind them.
James Watkins directs. He blends body horror, psychological suspense and revenge into a very different kind of DC story.
Tom Rhys Harries as Clayface, before the transformation
Before he becomes one of Gotham’s most dangerous men, Matt Hagen is just someone trying to outrun where he came from.
Raised on Gotham’s streets, he builds an improbable second life as a Hollywood leading man. The climb looks like proof that the past is finally behind him, right up until a local crime boss leaves him horribly disfigured.
The attack takes more than his face. It takes the career and the identity he spent years assembling.
His team walks. The future evaporates. What is left is a man desperate enough to try anything that might give him back the person he used to be. That desperation is where DC’s Clayface actually begins.
The Clayface origin story turns on one experimental treatment
Matt finds a cutting-edge medical procedure that seems to do the impossible.
It restores his appearance, apparently handing him a second shot at the life he lost. It also brings consequences nobody warned him about.
As he wrestles with the effects, his grip on reality starts slipping. The wish to reclaim what was stolen curdles into something harder and meaner. The treatment repairs the face and releases whatever was waiting underneath.
That is the setup that gives this Matt Hagen movie more emotional weight than the average villain project. Matt is not after power and he is not trying to run Gotham. He is a humiliated man who lost everything and cannot let it go.
DC’s Clayface leans all the way into horror
Putting this character in a horror thriller was the obvious move, and it is a little surprising it took this long.
Clayface’s abilities have always carried something genuinely unpleasant in them, especially once you start asking questions about identity, transformation and losing authority over your own body. This DC body horror film looks ready to sit in that discomfort instead of sanding it down into a standard superhero adventure.
Watkins comes from Speak No Evil and The Woman in Black, which makes him a compelling choice to stage Matt Hagen’s disintegration. With him behind the camera, the Clayface horror movie can chase both the physical grotesquerie and the psychological cost of watching yourself disappear.
Naomi Ackie and Max Minghella join the DC Studios Clayface movie
Tom Rhys Harries is surrounded by serious company.
The film also stars Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan. Nancy Carroll and Joshua James appear as well, though their roles have not been detailed.
That combination of established performers attached to a character-driven horror story says this DC villain movie is not being treated as a minor entry about an obscure rogue. He may be a cult favorite among longtime Batman readers, but this could be the thing that introduces Matt Hagen to everyone else.
Watch the trailer
Clayface opens in theaters October 23.
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