Clayface

“There’s so many of you,” says comedian Rob Brydon’s jolly talk show host. “You must have trouble finding the real Matt Hagen.” Newly nominated for an Oscar, movie star Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) seems to have it all at the beginning of Clayface, an origin story about the goopy Batman villain with shape-shifting powers reminiscent of the T-1000. But during his victory lap of private jets and flashy clubs, he beds the wrong woman and incurs the wrath of a powerful mobster, who slices up his face. “He ain’t pretty no more,” quips boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik), evoking the famous line in Raging Bull (1980). It won’t be the last classic movie reference in the film. Later, Hagen plays out his version of the “I knew it was you” scene from The Godfather Part II (1974)—only instead of a kiss, he engulfs the betrayer’s head in his malleable torso. Directed by James Watkins (Speak No Evil, 2024), Clayface is a strange hybrid of mob movie, show-business tragedy, and body-horror gorefest, all wrapped in a hard-R package that made me hyper-aware of the unaccompanied preteens down the row at my screening.

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