Clayface revels in its unflinching bodily carnage, forcing precise incisions of disturbing content onto its viewers. Brutal body horror, frequent harsh language and nudity abound in this DC villain’s origin story.
Who is Matt Hagen?
That is the question interviewers clamor to ask after the Gotham-born actor is nominated for an Oscar. An active member of the community who takes time to speak to the kids at a local community theater. A man who uses acting as a way to understand his darkest emotions but isn’t caught up in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood life. Equal parts resident of the rough streets of Gotham and frequenter of the red carpet.
That is, until he meets Mia Torres at a night club.
Mia has been romantically linked with mob boss Markos Szabo for a while now—a fact that Matt’s friend Corey warns him of. “She’s clearly not with him tonight,” Matt replies.
Markos and his men arrive the next morning, ready to take the source of Matt’s successful acting career: his face.
Matt’s injuries are well beyond the reach of plastic surgery. His best bet is an experimental trial with nanocell technology invented by Dr. Caitlyn Corr. Matt doesn’t much care for Caitlyn’s avid warnings about the possibility of unknown side effects: These microscopic “method actors” should be able to not only pull his face back together, but repair it rapidly should any other damage occur.
This is the kind of life-altering treatment that could give Matt back his beloved career. But now that he’s seen firsthand how evil people can get away with anything in Gotham, is that what he wants?
Who is Matt Hagen?
Is he a man who can accept the rare second chance at life that he’s received? Or will his suppressed, darker instincts lead him down a path of violent revenge?
As mentioned above, Matt does seem to care deeply for the community in which he grew up, giving back to at-risk youth who’ve found the same solace in theater that he once did. In other scenes, we see him play basketball with community members and take time to talk with fans of his work. After being nominated for an Oscar, Matt whispers, “Hear that mom? We did it.”
While fans of the Batman mythos will know that the Gotham City Police Department is notoriously corrupt, viewers witness at least one detective here who isn’t fazed by the mob’s threats against him, and he aims to do the right thing consistently.
Matt starred in a movie called “Hell River,” although only one line of the script is ever read. Initially, Matt describes his “healing” process as a miracle. He convinces Caitlyn to give him more nanotech than she initially wanted to test, telling her to “take a leap of faith.” A woman wears a cross necklace in multiple scenes.
Matt’s night with Mia kicks off with the two dancing seductively at a club. Mia wears a dress that is hardly keeping her chest covered. The pair kiss passionately. They wake up at Matt’s apartment the next morning. Mia stands up and viewers witness her bare backside and breasts. Matt is naked but covered by a well-placed blanket. (It should be noted that Mia later lies about this encounter, telling the press that Matt drugged her, so that her mob boyfriend won’t find out she consensually cheated on him.)
Other club scenes feature more patrons in skimpy outfits. A man kisses a woman that he knows is in a relationship. She looks conflicted but ultimately turns him down. A woman kisses a man while holding a psychedelic drug in her mouth, seemingly “enhancing” both of their experiences.
After the nanotech injection, Caitlyn has to observe Matt overnight for research purposes. The technology allows Matt to shapeshift, and as he rests, Caitlyn witnesses his body transform into a doppelgänger of herself. The resulting imagery makes it look like Matt is dreaming about himself holding Caitlyn as they both sleep.
Matt isn’t always able to control his malleability. In one scene, we see him lying in an empty bathtub, unclothed, with his skin seemingly melting over itself, obscuring any sensitive body parts from view.
A few gang members joke about Markos taking Viagra because Mia is “in heat.” One guy’s nickname is “Jimmy One-nut.” Multiple male characters are seen shirtless on a few occasions. A woman implies that she is engaged to a man, but in a later scene, that “fiancé” only calls her his girlfriend.
[Spoilers are contained in this section.]
The initial carving of Matt’s face is surprisingly brutal, an example of many in this film where the camera refuses to pan away from the carnage. Gang members hold him down while others slice up his forehead and stick a knife in his mouth, forcing it back out through his cheek. Matt’s scars render him unrecognizable. They serve as a constant reminder to him about the mistake he made with Mia and the corrupt justice system that refused to punish those who maimed him.
Doctors attempt to piece Matt’s face back together in a couple scenes—once again, audiences view Matt’s face getting carved open, this time by surgical equipment. The most visceral moment involves a scalpel cutting into his nose, removing the skin and splitting the cartilage, turning his nose into a bloody cavity for viewers to witness.
As Caitlyn tests her nanotech, she removes a few layers of skin on her arm to perform tests. When Matt volunteers for experimental human trials of her technology, she reluctantly agrees. Thereafter, several large needles are injected into the scars on Matt’s face, pumping in the nanocells. While initially working well, repairing the damage to Matt’s face, his skin seemingly begins to melt in grotesque ways. To counter these effects, and once again ignoring the advice of Caitlyn, Matt injects himself with unprecedented amounts of the nanotech.
After falling flat on his face during a game of basketball, Matt witnesses his busted mouth heal itself with the nanotechnology. In a later scene, Matt tests the capabilities of the tech, cutting his face multiple times and watching the blood trickle back up from his bathroom sink and into his body. He repeats this wince-inducing experiment many times, later slicing off a whole chunk of skin to prove his findings to Caitlyn. Matt vomits bloody chunks of … something in one scene.
The film’s most visually visceral scene takes place on a plane, as Matt’s eyes begin to melt shut as the nanotech malfunctions. During a bout of intense turbulence, Matt sticks his fingers in his eyes, hoping to force them open. When this doesn’t work, he grabs a small pair of scissors, attempting to cut his eyelids open again—all while the plane violently shakes. This is somewhat successful but draws a fair amount of blood. The scene plays out long enough to build palpable tension, as viewers are subjected to uncomfortable close-ups of the entire ordeal.
Beyond the consistent morphing of Matt’s face, he discovers that his hands can take unnatural shape as well. While attempting to cover a man’s mouth, Matt’s clay-like hand begins to run down the man’s throat. Matt attempts to separate himself from the man by yanking back hard, but he accidentally rips out the man’s throat and tongue.
Matt uses his malleable skin to suffocate a man: The man’s face is shoved into Matt’s chest, and the skin molds around the man’s head. Matt contorts his hands into spikes to use as weapons. In one instance, seen only through shadows, he turns his arm into a spiked mass, using the appendage to bludgeon a man. We see the aftermath of the man’s crushed brains on the Gotham pavement.
Matt uses his shapeshifting skills to take on the appearance of several different gang members back-to-back, dispatching these criminals as he does so—either by stabbing them himself or letting the confused men shoot each other. Two men get their clothed private parts completely crushed or repeatedly, bloodily stabbed. After a woman bites off a hunk of Matt’s arm, the “clay” expands in her mouth and nose, cutting off any air.
Knowing that his blood will work its way back into his wound once its spilled, Matt pins down Markos and cuts himself in the same places that Markos cut Matt’s face. Matt’s blood pours down onto Markos’ face, getting in his nose and mouth and behind his eyes. As Matt’s blood returns to him, it takes bits of Markos’ face with it in a moment so bloody that it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on.
After deciding to terminate the nanotech within Matt, Caitlyn watches him turn into the form of the character comic fans are more familiar with—a grotesque, lumpy, constantly morphing, barely human figure whose image alone would give younger Batman fans nightmares.
Taking residence in an apartment in a rough part of town, Matt overhears a domestic conflict through the walls: A woman shouts, “If you touch my baby again, I’ll kill you!”
A man is hit by a car but survives. Several men are shot and killed, dying in pools of their own blood.
Clayface sports enough foul language to melt discerning viewers’ ears like clay. Close to 60 f-words and five s-words, many of which are delivered by mob members who curse like a middle schooler who thinks profanity makes him sound cooler. A few uses each of “a–,” “d–n,” “h—” and “pr–k,” as well as a handful of misuses of Jesus’ name, pollute the script.
Multiple scenes at a nightclub involve obviously inebriated characters with drinks in their hands or psychedelic drugs on their tongues. Characters drink wine with dinner on a few occasions as well.
Mia lies to news reporters about what happened between her and Matt. Matt is betrayed by those closest to him on multiple occasions: Friends and business advisors double-cross him out of fear of mob repercussions. Immediately after finding out about the damage Matt’s face suffered, his agent drops him entirely.
A woman vomits in a bag during a flight with heavy turbulence.
As far as fictional landscapes go, I’d wager that Gotham is one of the last I’d choose to live in. Avid comic fans know that Joker spewing toxic gas into the city from a blimp is just your average Tuesday. Good luck going on your lunch break: A vigilante just totaled your car in a tussle with Bane. I’d also imagine the LinkedIn listings for open security guard positions at Arkham Asylum won’t be getting too many applicants.
Clayface doesn’t feature any of those villains, of course, but it also doesn’t have a Batman protecting the streets of Gotham—or any hero for that matter.
Attempting to make Matt both a likeable antihero (a bad guy killing even worse guys, so it’s fine!), and a tragic character whose villainy was thrust upon him, the film gets a bit lost in its own constantly morphing tone. Helmed by a less capable actor, and it would have been as messy as its central character. Tom Rhys Harries’ performance as Matt is genuinely compelling as he centers a film with a plethora of interesting concepts but less than consistent execution.
Clayface is doomed to be the elusive, R-rated “superhero” flick that catches the attention of many a middle schooler who should not be let anywhere near it. The kind of film that you grow up and watch years later just to wonder, “That’s what I was so anxious to see?”
While Clayface certainly provides a fresh take on a lesser-known comic book character, the result is a mixed bag, creatively speaking, and a heaping pile of monstrous skin and blood as far as content goes. Suffocating its audience in brutal bodily violence, frequent harsh profanities and some explicit sexuality, viewers may find that a Gotham without Batman is nary worth a visit.
Jonah Parker’s first interaction with Plugged In came when he was just five years old, after his parents read a review for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and deemed the content too intense for him. What started out as a contentious relationship between Jonah and a staff of reviewers who knew not of his existence would later turn into an appreciation for the site’s ability to present media content in a way that was accurate and fair. Jonah enjoys analyzing how our entertainment echoes the creativity of our Creator while finding glimpses of Biblical truths within every genre. He believes that Robert Pattinson’s Batmobile is the perfect mix of cool and practical.
