Gotham can hardly be described as a place of ease. It’s a place where the crime is relentless, the villains are unusually committed, and even the man trying to help looks like something you wouldn’t want to find in your garage. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before DC looked around and decided to make a horror movie.
Enter Clayface, a story about a Hollywood star, a desperate attempt to reclaim his life and a treatment that comes with considerably more than the usual side effects. A grotesque combination that could absolutely work as DC Studios’ first foray into horror. The storyline explores identity, scientific ambition and a man’s descent into revenge. Now this is a new direction for the studio, rather than a claim that DC’s entire history has somehow avoided the frightening and grotesque. Film announcement
According to the official synopsis, the story follows Matt Hagen, who rises from Gotham’s streets to become a Hollywood leading man. His success collapses when a local crime boss leaves him severely disfigured. He is abandoned by his team, and turns to an advanced treatment. The treatment restores his appearance, but begins affecting his grip on reality. And this sends him towards an obsession with revenge.
My first thought was, a miraculous treatment in a horror movie? There is only one way this can go. But then I realised that underneath the nightmare is a premise that feels uncomfortably human. And the real question is: What happens when the thing people have celebrated about you suddenly disappears? Would you agree to almost anything if someone promised to give it back?
Hollywood Has Always Been Frightening About Faces
There’s something particularly cruel about putting an actor at the centre of this story. We spend so much time talking about talent, hard work and the years it takes to become successful. Then somebody’s appearance changes and suddenly the conversation changes with it. They lose their youthful or alter their appearance in some way. And in an instant, the version of themselves everybody decided they should remain forever evaporates. It must surely be an exhausting arrangement, even without experimental science getting involved.
This is exactly what makes Matt’s desperation understandable. His appearance, especially his face that is tied to his career, his public identity and the life he has built. The people around him withdrawing when he needs them most gives the premise an ugliness of its own. But before we even get to the monster, there’s the possibility that an audience will recognise the fear. Being discarded, becoming invisible, and discovering that the affection surrounding you had conditions attached must be one of the hardest things to bear. So when you are offered a way back, I can totally understand why the questions might come second.
A Body You Can No Longer Trust
Clayface is a particularly interesting character to bring into horror because transformation is already central to him. Across DC’s comics, different people have carried the name, with shape-shifting among the character’s defining abilities. DC’s character guide. On paper, changing your appearance sounds absolutely fabulous. You could shape shift whenever it suited you. Avoid an awkward conversation. Escape a terrible photograph and potentially make passport control a complete nightmare. But imagine losing control of that ability.
Your face is usually the thing that confirms you are still yourself when you look in a mirror. Turn that into something unreliable and you have a fear that doesn’t require much explanation. That’s where body horror gets under your skin, sometimes quite literally. It makes your own body feel unfamiliar and locking the door doesn’t solve very much when the thing frightening you is you. For me, that’s the strongest possibility in Clayface. The transformations can be disturbing, but the emotional horror comes from understanding why this man took the risk in the first place. Yes, he wanted his life back, but you have to admit that there’s something tragic about a supposed solution becoming another way to lose yourself.
Gotham Is a Good Place for This to Go Wrong
The fact that all this is connected to Gotham’s criminal world gives the story another reason to feel dangerous. Matt’s downfall begins with violence, and his response draws him towards revenge. That creates room for a horror story in which cruelty, desperation and scientific ambition feed into one another. All of this fits quite nicely into Gotham, a city whose stories can move between organised crime, corruption, obsession and outright monstrosity without anyone having to explain why the neighbourhood has suddenly become strange.
I am really interested in experiencing that world through someone vulnerable to it. A man with something to lose, who discovers that getting it back may come at a terrible price. James Watkins directs, with Tom Rhys Harries playing Matt Hagen and a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini. The cast also includes Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan.
Watch Trailer Here:
There’s plenty here to attract DC fans, but the premise also offers horror audiences a straightforward reason to be interested. Fame, desperation, a dangerous treatment and a body that may no longer obey its owner are enough to build a nightmare around. But of course, the film still has to deliver. A compelling idea gets our attention; making us care about the person living through it is what could make the horror stay with us. And that’s why I’m interested in Clayface.
A fallen star trying to reclaim his identity is already a story. But put him in Gotham, offer him a miracle and let obsession take hold, and suddenly that comeback looks considerably less reassuring.
Hollywood loves a transformation.
This one, however, might make it reconsider.
“You’ve never met anyone like him.” #ClayfaceMovie — only in theaters October 23.
