Gotham has seen plenty of villains, but none quite as squelchy as this. Clayface, the third film in DC Studios’ new screen universe, takes a second-string Batman foe and turns him into the star of a nasty, rain-soaked body-horror tragedy, with no franchise homework required and an 18 certificate it fully earns.
Directed by James Watkins, the British genre hand behind Eden Lake and Speak No Evil, from a story by Mike Flanagan and a screenplay by Flanagan and Hossein Amini, it is bold, gruesome and often genuinely unsettling. It is also a film that never quite decides what it wants to say about the man at its centre.
A beautiful face is the whole business plan in Clayface, and watching it come apart is the most frightening thing a superhero film has done in years.
Movie at a Glance
- UK availability: In cinemas nationwide from Friday 23 October 2026
- US release: In cinemas from Friday 23 October 2026
- Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures (DC Studios)
- Certificate: 18 (UK), R (US)
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Director: James Watkins
- Writers: Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini (story by Mike Flanagan)
- Starring: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella, David Dencik and Eddie Marsan
- Genre: Body horror, revenge thriller
- DC Universe: Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, film three
Viewer Match
- Best for: Horror fans who love practical gore, old-school revenge thrillers and anyone who has ever wished The Fly had a Gotham postcode.
- Maybe skip if: You want a cape, a Batman cameo or a tidy message; gore and facial mutilation are hard limits for you.
- Mood and pace: Slow-burn noir that tips into grisly, bloody set pieces in the second half.
- Cinema or streaming? Cinema. The make-up effects and the sound design are made for a dark auditorium full of gasps.
- Spoiler level: None. This review is spoiler-free.
A Star Who Loses His Face
Matt Hagen, played by Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries, is a Gotham kid who has made it big in Coast City, the DC world’s stand-in for Hollywood. He has a first Oscar nomination, a talk-show glow and a best friend who is still waiting for his own break. One reckless night with the girlfriend of a feared mob boss, Markos Szabo (David Dencik), ends with a switchblade taken to the one asset his whole career is built on.
What follows is the familiar shape of a revenge story. Matt’s career collapses, his manager (Eddie Marsan) helps himself to the money, and the only hope is Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a fringe scientist whose experimental nanite treatment might rebuild his face. It does, at first. Then the side effects begin, and the film starts to show its teeth.
Body Horror That Really Commits
This is where Clayface earns its place. Watkins treats Matt’s body as a horror set piece in its own right. Faces droop and slide, features flicker into someone else’s, and skin behaves in ways that will make even seasoned horror fans look at the floor. The effects lean heavily on practical make-up rather than weightless digital mush, and that tactile quality is what makes the gore land.
The obvious comparisons, from David Cronenberg’s The Fly to Sam Raimi’s Darkman and last year’s The Substance, are fair, and the film wears them proudly. It feels more like a nineties midnight movie with a studio budget than a modern superhero blockbuster, and that is meant as a compliment.
Tom Rhys Harries Carries It
Casting a face audiences do not yet know by heart was a smart move. Rhys Harries has the easy, sandy-haired charm of a rising star, but he also gives Matt a raw hunger that makes his worst choices believable. He is at his best in the quiet moments of panic, when Matt catches himself in a mirror and is not sure who is looking back.
Naomi Ackie gives Caitlyn a prickly, ambitious edge that stops her from becoming a simple love interest, and the gothic spark between her and Matt is one of the film’s pleasures. Max Minghella is solid as the detective engaged to her, while Dencik makes Szabo the sort of mobster you believe would do exactly what he does. Marsan, as ever, is perfectly slippery.
Where It Loses Its Shape
The trouble is the script. Flanagan and Amini set up rich ideas about vanity, fame and an industry that judges people literally at face value, then drop most of them once the revenge plot takes over. Is Matt a victim, a monster, or both? The film wants the sympathy of a tragedy and the thrill of a slasher, and it does not always manage the switch, especially in a final stretch where his choices feel at odds with the man we have been asked to care about.
Gotham itself is a mixed bag too. The grey-and-neon noir look, shot by Rob Hardy and filmed largely in Liverpool and at Leavesden, has real style in places, but next to The Batman or The Penguin this city can feel thinner and more like a set. Volker Bertelmann’s score does a lot of the heavy lifting on atmosphere.
How It Fits the DC Universe
After a respectable Superman and a shakier Supergirl, Clayface is the first DC Universe film that truly feels like its own animal. There is no wider franchise plotting to wade through and no need to know eight decades of comic history. That freedom is its greatest strength: it plays as a single, nasty, genre-blending story rather than a trailer for the next instalment.
If you come for the transformation horror and a committed lead performance, there is plenty to relish. If you need the ideas to land as hard as the gore, you may leave a little disappointed.
Spoiler-Free Verdict
Clayface is gruesome, stylish and refreshingly unbothered by franchise duty, powered by a fearless turn from Tom Rhys Harries and some of the most stomach-churning practical effects in a studio film this year. A screenplay that keeps backing away from its own best ideas stops it from being a modern horror classic, but as a grisly Halloween night out it delivers.
- Performances: 8/10
- Direction: 7.5/10
- Screenplay: 6.5/10
- Score: 7/10
- Cinematography: 7/10
- Entertainment Value: 8/10
- Overall score: 7.5/10
Star rating: 3.5/5
Verdict badge: One for Fans
One-line verdict: A gnarly, grown-up DC horror that gets under your skin even when its ideas slip through its fingers.
Watch the Official Trailer
DC’s official trailer gives a taste of Matt Hagen’s transformation. It shows more than this spoiler-free review, so watch with that in mind.
Would you rather see more one-off DC horror films like Clayface, or should the DC Universe stick closer to its heroes? Tell Movieversalfilm what you think.