The Man Without a Face

When James Gunn came on board as the co-head of DC Studios (alongside Peter Safran, who he had worked with on several projects beforehand), Gunn made it clear that he didn’t want to just make a superhero franchise like the ones that had been done before. He didn’t just have to compare his slate of upcoming movies to the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. as there was also the failed DC Extended UniverseStarted as DC Comics' answer to the MCU, the early films in the franchise stumbled out of the gates, often mired in grim-dark storytelling and the rushed need to get this franchise started. Eventually, though, the films began to even out, becoming better as they went along. Still, this franchise has a long way to go before it's true completion for Marvel's universe. to account for as well, which actually featured two of his own projects (The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker). What he wanted was something different, a series of films and movies where viewers could find heroes and stories they liked, but with a variety of formats and styles to suit multiple tastes.

Consider the MCU, where everything feels very homogeneous. A number of directors, writers, and creators have all cycled through Marvel’s studio system, but the works they’ve created have, by and large, all felt like Marvel productions and not the work of specific creators. The Marvel house style is strong, and that was something Gunn wanted to avoid. At the same time, he also wanted to give creators some creativity, letting them wander away from a set style that any one creator (like, say, Zack SnyderOften reviled for the bombastic and idiotic content of his films, there is no question that what Snyder's movies lack in substance they (at least try to) balance out with flash and style, making him one of Hollywood's top directors... sadly.) was developing. Each work could be its own thing and tell its own story independent of the greater DCU.

With Clayface, the first outright horror title in the DCU (because while the Creature Commandos are horror monsters, their show was not a horror project). Made on a small budget and released in the middle of October, the perfect month for horror films, Clayface is both a big swing for the burgeoning cinematic universe, while also a safer play than some. It’s horror, which isn’t generally a genre touched upon by superhero stories (the closest Marvel has come so far is Werewolf By Night which… isn’t really at all), but it was made cheaply. If it’s a success, it speaks well for the DCU. If it fails, it isn’t really that big a loss on the studio’s ledger. It can ride a fine line while audiences decide if the film is worth watching or not. The DCU is still very much in a phase of finding itself, and Clayface is an interesting direction for DC to go.

Thankfully, the film is actually pretty awesome. While Gunn compared it to other body horror films like The Substance and The Fly, I would honestly argue that the closest parallel for this story is Sam Raimi’s 1990 body horror superhero cheapie Darkman. A man suffers a terrible injury, ruining his face, but with technology he’s able to (temporarily) take on the guises of other people, using this skill to hunt down those that wronged him and get his (justifiable) revenge. But in Clayface the protagonist rides the line between hero and monster a little harder, crossing over it and losing himself in the violence. Although we’re getting ahead of ourselves…

In Clayface we’re introduced to Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), a rising Hollywood actor who is on the verge of becoming a true A-lister. Up for a potential Academy Award, Matt goes back to his hometown of Gotham with his friend, Corey Bowery (Joshua James), to celebrate. At a club that night Matt meets Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro), a sexy girl that really seems interested in Matt, the two of them dance, do a little X, and head back to his place, all despite the warning from Corey that Mia is the girlfriend of Markos Szabo (David Dencik). And then Szabo shows up in the morning and, in a fit of revenge for Matt sleeping with Mia, he horribly cuts up Matt’s face.

After this Matt’s entire life falls apart. He’s no longer attractive enough to do films, and many, many stories start coming out about how terrible he was in his youth. Hollywood turns against him, and Matt has to sell all that he has just to live in a dingy apartment in Gotham while he tries to find a way to rebuild his life. That’s when he stumbles on the work of Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a fringe scientist experimenting with nanobot treatment. He convinces her to use her treatment, which was made for debilitating, systemic conditions, on his face to see if they’ll heal him. And they do… but there are side effects that couldn’t be predicted, and an overdose later causes the condition to get even more dangerous. But it also gives Matt amazing powers, abilities to not just heal his face but change and adapt it. With these powers he could rebuild his life, or he could get the revenge he so desperately wants…

Like many other body horror films, Clayface is a slow descent. I understand the comparisons to The Fly and The Substance in this regard as we watch someone that goes into a procedure with the best of intentions, only to then watch their new found freedom and abilities spin wildly out of control. Matt doesn’t start out as a monster (at least, we don’t think so), but as he discovers his powers, and what they could mean for him, he begins to give into darker impulses, slowly sliding into depravity step by step until suddenly it’s too late and he can never turn back.

Clayface grounds itself in its story, which is why it works so well. The movie makes you care about Matt before he gets mutilated, and then you want to see him get better, even as you realize this is a movie about the making of a monster. It’s a villain story, and Matt eventually becomes our villain. But that’s something very cool about Clayface: our protagonist is also the bad guy, the villain of the piece, and we get to slowly watch Matt take on the role we know he’s destined for.

Compare that to the Sony villain films we got, none of which actually treated its protagonists as villains. Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter all had to diverge drastically from their characters’ comic book roots so they could take their villains and turn them into antiheroes. But Clayface understands that we want something inspired by the comics, something that feels true to the villain we know. We want to see a man become a monster so he can, presumably, fight Batman at some point. We don’t need the universe to rewrite itself around a character to redeem them somehow. Clayface doesn’t redeem its monster and it’s better for it.

It’s also slick as hell. Even with its moderate budget (DC Studios only spent $30 to 44 Mil on the film, depending on reporting) the film still looks great. The monster effects are really solid, clearly using a blend of practical effects and CGI to pull off the creature at the center of it all. And frequently the film doesn’t even have to resort to that, instead having Matt change his face between frames, or behind objects, quickly becoming one person after another in the blink of an eye. It works so well, especially in a climactic sequence late in the film where Matt spins circles around his targets. Clayface knows how to use its creature very effectively.

All of which leads to one of the best works of the DCU yet. Audiences think of the DCU as a superhero franchise, which is generally fair since most of DC’s characters are superheroes. But what Clayface illustrates clearly is that there’s more to the DCU than just the capes and cowls. Here we have a villain who can carry their own movie, and with this film we get the promise of not just more adventures like this, focusing on characters that wouldn’t normally get their own solo spotlight. I don’t know that we need Mr. Freeze, Condiment King, or Reverse Flash solo films, but what Clayface has shown us is that, unlike everything Sony did with their villains, maybe there’s a chance those kinds of movies could be good.

Clayface is fantastic. It’s a tight, sharp, dark, and quite effectively gross body horror film that understands its character and gets the most mileage it can out of him. It focuses on what matters most and doesn’t concern itself with fitting a house style or trying to be part of a wider narrative. This a movie about a monster, and it gives us that tale without anything getting in the way of it. Hell, it’s a movie about a Batman villain and Batman never shows up. I would have thought that to be a mortal sin for a villain movie, and yet it works perfectly here.

We have a universe where Clayface, Lanterns, and Superman are all connected, but they can go off and tell their own stories without worry. That’s a cinematic universe I can get behind, and Clayface, if nothing else, proves that Gunn’s idea for building this universe has legs. I really enjoyed Clayface, and now I’m even more on board for whatever comes next in the DCU.