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spoilers to follow Clayface.
The DC Universe has released its first properly scary movie. Although a bit shapeless, “Clayface” is an effective and very scary body horror film. Drawing from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amin (and borrowing heavily from Sam Raimi’s “Darkman”), director James Watkins reimagines the Batman villain as a tragic yet still very scary movie monster here.
Indeed, Tom Rhys Harry’s Matt Hagen undergoes quite a transformation in the film, and it relies heavily on implications (much like James Cameron’s Terminator special effects). A creepy eye here, a glowing hand there – it’s definitely a comic until the final act finally reveals the slime-like Clayface fans from DC Comics. Now concept artist Carlos Huante has taken to Instagram to share some of his early designs for “Clayface” before the film was properly greenlit by Warner Bros. by Pictures.
“I worked on it a bit before going green,” wrote Huante. “At first it wasn’t clear what they were going to do, but it was an origin story, and after that picture it became more clear that it was going to be a horror movie rather than a Batman supervillain…which is cool with me…but I still wanted to do this thing with the Clayface creature…but they only hired me for a week and that seemed to be their budget.
Clayface could have been much more disgusting
Then again, for most of Clayface, Matt Hagen’s characters look pretty ordinary. Sure, his face melts a little here and there, but he doesn’t look like a real comic until he turns into a giant mud-monster at the end of the movie. However, in the early version of the film that Carlos Huante was working on, Matt seemed to be twisted from the start. With his asymmetrical skull and one arm fused to his torso, he comes across as someone who simply cannot maintain a consistent physical form in this work.
Notably, “Clayface” originated with Mike Flanagan, who first pitched the project to DC Studios. The final version of the film is said to be James Watkins, which is why the director said that DC Comics fans should blame him if they don’t like it. Still, we can’t help but wonder if the film could be replayed, where Clayface’s character’s body changes in disturbing ways (as opposed to him simply copying others).
“Clayface” is currently playing in theaters.
