Three days out, DC Studios’ Batman villain origin is landing as a full body-horror tragedy — not a capes-and-quips spinoff.
By The Cinephile — CelebnMusic247
The DC Universe is about to get genuinely scary. Only three days remain until the Clayface movie takes over theaters on Friday, October 23, per Collider — and everything in Collider’s report points to an R-rated horror film that happens to live inside a superhero universe, not the other way around.
Clayface stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, a Hollywood star whose rise is cut short after he is brutally disfigured by the mob, per Collider. Desperate, Hagen submits to a scientific treatment that seems to heal him miraculously — until he realizes his body has changed forever. Collider describes a spiral of caustic love and revenge that warps his mind along with his body, as the film makes creative, terrifying use of the shape-shifter’s powers.
A horror pedigree, not a franchise assignment
This one started as a passion pitch. Per Collider, horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan first expressed interest in exploring Clayface through a tragic horror lens back in 2021, then pitched the idea to DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran once the new DCU took shape. Flanagan wrote the screenplay alongside Hossein Amini, and Speak No Evil director James Watkins took the reins. Gunn has billed Flanagan’s script as “one of the best scripts that we’ve read,” per the Motion Picture Association’s coverage of the final trailer.
That lineage matters. Flanagan brings the grief, Watkins brings the dread, and neither is a house style you hire by accident. Collider notes the result is crafted as a surprisingly accessible standalone story within the wider DCU — a film a horror fan can walk into cold, without needing Superman, Supergirl, Peacemaker or Lanterns homework first.
Alongside Harries, Naomi Ackie stars as Dr. Caitlyn Bates, who tries to understand what the treatment did to Hagen’s body, per Collider. David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll and Joshua James round out the cast.
Built to make an audience squirm — together
First reactions were mostly positive, praising the mix of body horror and tragedy, the film’s refusal to soften its R-rated material, and Harries’ central performance, per Collider. Watkins told Collider’s Steve Weintraub that the goal was a roller-coaster experience built for a reacting crowd: “You want to give them a delicious squirm, I suppose. You know when you hear that laughter, that kind of nervous laughter, and the squirm of being with audiences? It’s like a roller coaster, right?”
Watkins added that the point is the audience itself — a film to be seen with a lot of people in a cinema. It is a well-timed bet: a hard-R Gotham horror story opening the weekend before Halloween, sold on shared gasps rather than post-credit teases.
Here is what the countdown alone does not capture: Clayface is the DCU’s genre test. Gunn and Safran promised a slate stretching from superhero action to comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, crime and horror, per Collider. Superman proved the hopeful end of that promise. This weekend proves — or breaks — the other end. If a standalone villain tragedy can open, the DCU becomes a place filmmakers pitch their strangest ideas to, not just a queue for sequels.
The 247 Take — Forget cameo counting: the bravest DC movie of the year is a monster movie about an actor who loses his face and then his mind. See it opening weekend, in a packed theater, exactly the way Watkins wants you to — squirming along with everybody else.
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Sources: Collider, Motion Picture Association
