At the heart of every Batman movie - in the 21st century at least - is a crime movie. Movie Batman doesn't fight aliens or monsters or banter with co-workers; gangsters do crimes, he sorts them out. And while Clayface is being pitched as a horror movie of sorts, it still takes place (mostly) in Gotham City, which means it's (mostly) a crime movie.
This is not a bad thing, and it does give the story some much needed structure. It's basically an origin story for one of Batman's many weirdo foes, and usually all you need to know there is "dunked in chemicals, now does crimes". The twist here is that he deliberately dunked himself in chemicals (of a kind). And why? Let's start from the beginning.
Actor Matt Hagan (Tom Rhys Harries) has it all. Fame, fortune, an Academy Award nomination, and handsome good looks that smooth his path through life. Unfortunately, on a return trip to Gotham he uses those good looks to sleep with the girlfriend (Joana Ribeiro) of a powerful mobster (David Dencik) and swiftly proceeds to lose both them and everything else.
Bumping along rock bottom after a court case designed to avenge his sliced up face doesn't go his way (to the surprise of no-one - this is Gotham, after all), Hagan stumbles across the work of scientist Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie). Her work promises to reverse tissue damage, but she's years away from human trials. Hagan, who cares not about such things, says let her rip.
Small doses provide promising results, but Hagan needs more if he's going to claw his way back to the top. Taking things too far seems to get results at first: his looks are restored, and with them his charm and confidence. But the results don't stick. Stress or emotional pressure means his face starts to sag, while anger and rage... well, they start to come out physically as well.
Turns out Hagan isn't exactly the "living well is the best revenge" kind of guy either. People wronged him on his way down, and now it's payback time. Stacking up the corpses combined with some growing feelings for Corr and he's got a lot on his plate. Fortunately for him, one of the advantages of his new powers is the ability to look like anyone else, so he can share his problems around.
The body horror moments here are effective, but they're more squirm-inducing than horrific. They all happen to Hagan and he's not going to die from trying to (for example) cut his newly goopy eyelids open, so there's only so much tension these scenes can generate.
Likewise, the romance between him and Corr never really gets beyond a couple of moments, so the doomed love angle is more like an attempt to give a bad guy some shading than anything happening between two people we can get invested in.
With decent effects and a competent script, Clayface turns out to be a solid revenge story with some interesting flourishes rather than anything truly memorable. It's an entertaining crime flick with a decent twist, the kind of thing where the small scale should have allowed brave creatives to make interesting choices.
Sadly, it's not just Matt Hagan who has feet of clay.
- Anthony Morris
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