Clayface Review: The DC Villain Origin Story Goes All In on Body Horror

Clayface goes much deeper into body horror than I expected, and I'm very glad it does. It tells the story of Matt Hagen, a rising Hollywood star who becomes a terrifying monster driven by revenge after scientific ambition strips him of his identity and his humanity. My verdict is that it's worth watching, ideally in a theater with an audience.

Clayface (2026) stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen. After seeing the trailers, I was very excited, because I realized it would be the first film in the DC cinematic universe to use body horror as one of its main themes. I thought that was perfect for a villain origin story, especially for a character like Clayface because of the way his body is made.

Clayface's body horror goes further than the trailers showed

What I didn't expect was how far the film would sink into body horror. We had seen pieces of it in the trailer, and I was a little worried about that. I wondered whether they had put the most gruesome parts into the trailer as part of the marketing, to pull audiences in to see the film.

I'm happy to say I was wrong. Yes, those moments are in the film, and they still work very well. But there are even more horrifying things, and there were moments where I never expected them to push the body horror that far. I'm very glad they did.

Matt Hagen is a self made actor brought down by one bad decision

The film follows Matt Hagen, an actor with a great career. He's up for awards, and everything keeps getting better for him. He doesn't come across as a terrible person. I was curious about the angle they would take with him. Would he be arrogant and treat people badly on set because he's a movie star?

I loved the way they portrayed him instead, as someone who made his own way. He didn't have the best childhood, so he worked very hard to get everything he has. Unfortunately, one bad decision sets off a chain of unfortunate events. He reaches out to the wrong person, and that puts him directly in the crosshairs of the local mob boss.

They do the most horrible thing to him. Because he's an actor, his face is his livelihood and something very important to him, and they take that away from him. No matter how many surgeries he tries, his face won't heal. Sadly, the people around him who mattered so much to his career start drifting away and eventually abandon him, because they decide he's no longer useful to them. It's horrible, and his mental health deteriorates badly as a result.

The nanocell experiment and the scene that made me look through my fingers

He wants his face back, so he decides to try the experimental route. That's where he comes across a doctor's research into nanocell technology. It's still experimental, meaning it hasn't been approved for human use. But at that point he's weighing up what options he has left, and what option does he really have?

So he convinces her to go ahead with it together. If it doesn't work, she can stop it at any time. There's a button that controls the nanobots and ends the experiment if it becomes a danger to his life and health.

The scene where they inject the cells into his body was, I think, the peak of the body horror for me, because they didn't shy away from showing anything. This film doesn't hesitate to put the audience face to face with its horror, up close. In the trailer you see things being done to his face, like his eyelids closing, and you see him using nail clippers or something similar to try to cut it. In the film the scene is much longer, and they bring the camera in close in a realistic way. They want you to see everything. I was definitely squirming in my seat, and just thinking about it now makes me squirm again. I looked through my fingers a lot, because I couldn't stop myself reacting to it.

Matt Hagen's trauma and thirst for revenge erode his moral compass

Beyond the body horror, I liked the story they tell about how this man's mental health problems and past trauma pile up. I don't want to say it changes his personality, but it changes how he thinks and how he deals with people.

Once he realizes what he can do with these nanocells, that he can take on another person's appearance on top of fully regenerating, he believes he's invincible. Now he's angry, and he wants to find the people who did this to him and pay them back twice over. So he goes after them, and it's brutal. It's brutal every time, but things slip out of his control.

This power makes him feel he can do whatever he wants. There may be no consequences, because he doesn't have to appear as himself. Nobody has to know he's the one committing these crimes, and he can get away with it. I think that's when he starts to lose his moral compass and his sense of right and wrong, sliding from one bad choice to the next. Some bad choices put him in this situation in the first place, and then he didn't stop to think. He keeps going, blinded by his need for revenge.

Mike Flanagan's script and a first half that plays it too serious

I liked the way the whole thing was written. Mike Flanagan wrote it, so I had a feeling I would love it, and I wasn't let down. I loved this film and enjoyed it completely.

The one thing I'll say is that the first act through to the middle takes itself very seriously. The tone was extremely serious, and at one point I forgot it was a comic book movie. Then they started bringing some of that comic book atmosphere back, I think around the end of the second act or maybe the start of the third, with a big club scene. You'll know it when you see it. That was the feel I had hoped would run through the whole film, because I think the third act was the strongest.

I feel that in the first part they got lost in the idea that they had to build up the story and the character and make it serious to show the audience this is a serious matter. But we already see that. We see the gore and the script, and I sympathized with this man. So I wished there had been more of that comic book energy, but it's a very small note.

Why I rate Clayface worth watching in a theater

Otherwise, I enjoyed the film a lot. The amount of horror in it surprised me, and I'm very happy about that, because I badly wanted them to go all the way, and they did.

My rating for Clayface is worth watching. I feel I say this a lot about horror films, but for anything leaning into horror, I think it's important to experience it in a theater with an audience if you can, because of that shared experience and everyone's reactions. In my opinion, it's more fun that way.