Variety's early verdict on James Watkins' body-horror take on the DC villain says it works best precisely because it ignores the larger DC Universe plan.
James Watkins' "Clayface" doesn't need a DC Universe primer, and according to Variety's review, that's exactly why it works.
The film, out for Halloween, is the third entry in what's being called the DC Universe, following last year's "Superman" reboot and this summer's "Supergirl." But Variety's critic argues "Clayface" is the most interesting of the bunch because it barely feels tethered to the bigger franchise plan. It's described as its own "nasty, gnarly body-horror movie," closer in spirit to Nineties horror oddities like "Darkman" and "Thinner" than to anything resembling typical superhero connective tissue.
The plot, as laid out in the review, follows Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), a young actor on the verge of stardom in Coast City, DC's stand-in for Los Angeles. Things go sideways after a nightclub hookup with Mia (Joana Ribeiro), girlfriend of Gotham mobster Szabo (David Dencik). Szabo takes a switchblade to Matt's face the next morning, and his career collapses overnight, with what Variety calls a timely side of cancel culture thrown in.
A scientist, a cure, and a problem
Desperate to fix his face, Matt turns to Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a researcher developing untested cellular regeneration tech. It works. Too well, in fact. Matt's cells don't stop at repairing his old face, they start reshaping it into whatever they want, human or monstrous, with bloody consequences for everyone who wronged him along the way.
Variety credits screenwriter Hossein Amini, known for "Drive" and "The Wings of the Dove," with giving the genre material sharper dialogue than this kind of film usually gets, both in its violent confrontations and in the romantic tension between doctor and patient. Ackie's Dr. Corr reportedly gets more depth than the standard sexy-scientist role allows, while Max Minghella plays her suspicious cop boyfriend with what the review calls a witty squareness pulled from old comic-book noir. Dencik, meanwhile, is singled out for genuinely unnerving villain work as Szabo.
On the gross-out front, the film is said to deliver fully. Variety flags the practical prosthetics work throughout and calls out one setpiece in particular, involving fused eyelids, nail scissors and a plane hitting turbulence, as the kind of scene that will "fuel nightmares well into the coming months." Director Watkins, known for "Eden Lake" and "Speak No Evil," is described as handling it all with the freedom an R rating gives him, uninterested in sanding down the material for a broader audience.
The larger takeaway from the review is a bit of a shrug at the DC Universe as a branding exercise, paired with real enthusiasm for this specific movie. The critic's line is blunt: if there must be a DC Universe, it could use more films like this one, just not an endless string of sequels chasing the same formula.
Whether Warner Bros. Treats Clayface as a one-off or builds around it is still an open question. For now, the character gets to be strange on his own terms, in theatres this Halloween weekend.
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