The review embargo for Clayface lifted today, two days before it opens. I have been waiting for this one since DC first called it a horror movie, so here is everything critics and early audiences are saying, the review that sold me, and what I think it means for opening weekend.
Clayface opens in theaters Friday, October 23, with Thursday previews the night before. It is rated R in the US and 18 in the UK, it runs about 108 minutes, and it is only the third theatrical release in James Gunn and Peter Safran's DC Universe, after Superman and Supergirl. Putting a body horror movie that low on the slate is a real gamble, and it is exactly why I have been looking forward to it.
1Clayface
A Batman villain origin told as a body horror movie, not a superhero one.
Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, a kid from Gotham's Narrows who makes it all the way to Hollywood leading man before a local crime boss leaves his face destroyed. A cutting-edge treatment from scientist Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) gives him his face back, and then a whole lot more than that. Eddie Marsan, Max Minghella and David Dencik round out the cast.
The people behind it are the reason horror fans like me paid attention in the first place. James Watkins (Eden Lake, Speak No Evil) directs. The story is Mike Flanagan's, and he shares the screenplay credit with Hossein Amini (Drive). Flanagan has said he stepped away before filming started, but his fingerprints are on the premise, and his run of horror projects is why a Batman villain movie landed on my must-see list.
The comparisons people keep reaching for after seeing it are The Fly, The Substance and Darkman. If you have never seen those three, they make a perfect warm-up weekend:
Clayface opened at 77% on Rotten Tomatoes from its first 44 reviews, then slid as more came in. By the end of embargo day it was sitting at 74 to 75% from more than 80 reviews, with a Metacritic score of 59. That is Fresh, but not a sweep. It lands between Superman's 83% and Supergirl's 52%, which matters, because mixed reviews were a big part of why Supergirl stalled at the box office.
There was a bit of drama before any of that, too. The first review to show up on Rotten Tomatoes, a 2.5 out of 5 from ComicBookMovie that called it "DC's Morbius moment," was posted before the embargo and later pulled. If you saw that headline last week and panicked, the wider picture is much kinder.
What critics love
The gore. Bloody Disgusting called it "a full-on body horror movie filled with squirm-inducing moments," which is the sentence I wanted to read.
Tom Rhys Harries. Reviews consistently single him out, and the movie rests on his shoulders for nearly every scene.
Naomi Ackie. The Times praised the film's British leads, and the review below credits her with dodging the damsel-in-distress trap entirely.
It is fun. Variety's Guy Lodge called it "fresh and ickily enjoyable," and Consequence singled out the later sequences, once Hagen learns to control what he has become.
What critics don't
The fundamentals. The most common complaints are about the editing, the writing and an uneven tone. IndieWire called it "this ambitious misfire."
Thin characters around the lead. USA Today pointed to "a severe lack of character development."
A feeling that it could have gone further, which is the criticism that worries me least, because it means the movie is holding back rather than falling apart.
The review that sold me
Of everything published today, the review I keep going back to is Neil Vagg's four-star review for Get Your Comic On (find him on X at @neilvagg). It reads like it was written by someone who loves both comic book movies and horror, which is exactly who this film is for.
Brave, bloody and anchored by a magnetic Tom Rhys Harries.
Neil Vagg, Get Your Comic On
Vagg's big point is the one I was most nervous about. Villain origin movies love to make their monster so sympathetic that you end up rooting for him, and he names Venom and Joker as films that lost their way doing exactly that. Clayface, he says, gives Matt Hagen just enough sympathy before taking it back: "when it fades to black and the end credits roll there is little doubt that Clayface is a true villain." He also says "Harries puts in an incredible performance," and that "the practical makeup effects work is faultless," which is the best news a body horror fan can get.
He is honest about the flaws, too. He thinks the gore "could, and perhaps should, have pushed harder," with the camera cutting away at moments where it could have trusted the audience, and he calls the Gotham mob boss "rather cookie-cutter." But he also says it had people around him covering their eyes more than once, and he compares it to The Crow ("the good version") and The Substance. That is a lineup I am very happy with.
One detail from his review that DCU fans will love: the film splits its time between Gotham and Coast City, Hal Jordan's home, which was briefly glimpsed in HBO's Lanterns. If you missed that show, our Lanterns finale explainer will catch you up.
What fans said after the early screenings
The social media embargo lifted on October 14, after a round of fan and influencer screenings, and the reactions were close to euphoric. Collider's Steven Weintraub called it a hard R that surprised him and said his audience "freaked out a few times." Others said the crowd cheered at the nastiest moments, and one attendee said they had not felt that way leaving a theater since Obsession. The comparisons were all over the place, from The Fly and Darkman to Joker and Vanilla Sky, but the common thread was that you need zero comic book knowledge to follow it.
Take fan screening buzz with a grain of salt, because those rooms are full of people who already wanted to love it. Still, when the fans are raving and the critics land at a solid 75%, that usually means a movie that plays better with a loud crowd than in a quiet screening room. That is how I plan to see it.
Can it win opening weekend?
This is where it gets tense. Early tracking had Clayface opening somewhere between $23 million and $33 million. By mid-October, pre-sales were the softest of any DCU film so far, and one report had it pacing for a debut under $20 million. The good news is the price tag: it reportedly cost around $30 to $40 million, a fraction of a typical superhero movie, so it does not need a giant weekend to make money. An R-rated horror movie opening the weekend before Halloween also tends to hold up well, because it keeps selling tickets right through the 31st.
It also has company. Laika's Wildwood, Taika Waititi's Klara and the Sun and Ali G: Who Iz I? all open the same day. If you want more ideas for what to see before the year is out, my AMC $8 ticket watchlist has Clayface on it alongside seven others.
So, is Clayface worth seeing?
If you like horror, yes, and probably on opening weekend with a crowd. Critics are split on the craft, but almost nobody is complaining about the two things that matter most in a movie like this: the lead performance and the gross-out effects. If you are a superhero fan who flinches at gore, the reviews are pretty clear that this is not a Batman movie with a scary coat of paint. It is a horror movie that happens to live in Gotham.
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