I was all-in for Clayface. Prior to James Gunn’s arrival at the helm, none of the recent incarnations of DC’s superhero universe have worked for me, all too po-faced or pious, but now, under Gunn’s stewardship, things seemed like they’d veer a bit more into the frivolous territory I enjoy. And then the trailers began to appear.
In James Watkins’ Clayface, up-and-coming Hollywood favorite Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is disfigured in a brutal attack, his face covered in career-ending scars, so he opts for an experimental treatment that has…a few side-effects. His body starts getting awfully melty. It’s an origin story for the Batman villain, basically, but extra-gross.
When the first trailer arrived back in April, Rebekah covered it in a post sporting the headline, “DC’s New Clayface Looks Great—Wait, Oh My God, No, Absolutely Not.” But I figured, no, I’m cool with this! I loved that it was looking like a full-on horror flick set within the same universe as the breezy Superman, and that final jumpscare as he smears his face away was just perfect.
By trailer number two, which Zack headlined “Oh, Man, The Clayface Movie Is Even Grosser Than I Thought It’d Be In New Trailer,” I’ll admit I began to waver. It wasn’t all the face-smooshing, the way his skin was hideously growing across his mouth and eyes, nor even the terror with which Hagen reacts to all this. It was the scene with the scissors in the airplane bathroom. I involuntarily looked away, as he reached up to snip the tendrils of skin growing across his eyes, even though the trailer cuts away before showing anything that follows. But, I figured, that’s OK! It’s OK to have that one scene where the entire audience gasps in disgust and hides their eyes. I’ll still enjoy this.
And now there’s a third and final trailer, and I’m so close to nope-ing out.
There’s a lot that’s reprised here from previous trailers, including that bathroom mirror scene, and once again my head twisted my eyes away from the screen. Yet, once again, it cuts away before anything happens. But from then on it’s new footage, and some of that footage is pretty upsetting. It’s not what’s happening to Hagen, but Hagen happening to other people. And yes, obviously, this is a villain’s arc and we know he’s not going to be using his body-melding abilities to fight crime. But watching him press a man’s face through his stomach to suffocate him, as we see the facial features pressing through his back, is a lot. Far worse, however, is Hagen’s face as he does it, not a villainous curled grin of Machiavellian delight, but despondency, a tearful misery that it’s happening. Then he’s pressing his hands into a person’s face, and having his facial features punched into a mush, and more than anything else, just staring so incredibly sadly.
Brrrrr. I mean, I still really want to see it! But I’m genuinely concerned that the movie itself won’t cut off that scissors scene, and I’m squirming in my chair just thinking about that. Yet it’s the pervasive sadness that’s getting to me most of all. Body horror I can cope with, but miserable, devastated body horror might be a bit too much.