Few things are more terrifying than looking in the mirror and no longer recognizing the person staring back. Our faces are more than flesh and bone; they are the architecture of our identities, the masks we use to navigate the world, and the first things others use to recognize us. From infancy, we learn to interpret faces, searching them for emotion, familiarity, and meaning. Psychologists have long described the face as an entryway to the self. But what happens when that entryway is violently destroyed? What remains when the very thing that makes us recognizable is taken away?
That is the nightmare at the heart of Clayface, the new body horror film from DC Studios and Warner Bros. If you’re expecting a conventional supervillain origin story, think again. This is a tale of mutilation, obsession, and the horrifying consequences of trying to reclaim the person you once were.
 FANGORIA is proud to debut an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the new film, showing that despite its “superhero movie” connection, Clayface is pure body horror. Check it out!
The film centers on Matt Hagen, a gifted young actor whose rise from the poorest corners of Gotham City to Hollywood-level stardom seems to promise a life beyond his wildest dreams. But in a corrupt city where power can be bought, and loyalty is often just a business arrangement, this rags-to-riches story threatens the status quo. When Hagen becomes the target of Gotham’s criminal underworld, a brutal attack leaves his face grotesquely disfigured at the behest of a ruthless crime boss.
Practically overnight, the promising actor becomes a stranger in his own skin. His friends disappear. His management abandons him. The fans who once celebrated his face turn away. Hagen is left to confront a cruel reality: in an industry built on appearances, a ruined face means a ruined life.
In a desperate attempt to restore what was taken from him, Hagen turns to scientist Caitlyn Corr and her experimental treatment, a mysterious substance that promises to repair his shattered features (that, crucially, has yet to be tested on humans). At first, the results seem miraculous, but miracles — especially those born in a laboratory — rarely come without a price.
Hagen discovers his flesh has become malleable, and his features can shift and reform at will. He is no longer bound by the familiar contours of the human body. He can become anyone, granting him extraordinarily dangerous power. On his quest for revenge against those who hurt him, each new alteration threatens to drag him further from who he once was.
It’s a true Cronenbergian tragedy: a man’s desperate attempt to better himself mutates into a grotesque unraveling of identity, humanity, and sanity. Written by horror maestro Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini (Drive) and directed by James Watkins (Eden Lake, Speak No Evil), the film stars Tom Rhys Harries (The Gentlemen) as Matt Hagen, alongside Max Minghella (Spiral: From the Book of Saw) and Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice) as Caitlyn Corr. Producers include Matt Reeves, James Gunn, Peter Safran, and Lynn Harris.
First introduced in Detective Comics #40 in 1940 as Basil Karlo (a play on Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, two of our most famous horror-movie actors of the 1930s), the Clayface character has endured and evolved for generations, becoming a fan favorite through countless incarnations, including his memorable appearance in Batman: The Animated Series. DC Studios co-chief James Gunn has described the R-rated film as a “complete horror film.” Considering Gunn’s own filmmaking roots in Troma and his history with the visceral, flesh-melting madness of Slither, we have little reason to doubt him. Clayface is not your typical comic book movie from DC, and if this is the kind of stuff Gunn and Safran have in store moving forward, count me in.
