‘Clayface’: James Gunn’s body horror spin on DC villain is a hugely refreshing win

James Gunn's leadership at DC Studios has brought a sense of unpredictable ambition, with the new film *Clayface* offering a refreshing take on comic book adaptations.

The film, directed by James Watkins and written by Mike Flanagan, turns the supervillain origin story into a gripping body horror narrative with impressive practical effects. - *Clayface* stands out in the genre by focusing on a dark and tragic character study, making it a significant cinematic surprise and treating comic book adaptations as more than mere franchises.

OCTOBER 24 — Say what you want about James Gunn’s reign as the CEO of DC Studios, but you certainly can’t say that he’s been boring, that he hasn’t tried enough new things, or that he’s played things safe.

In an era where comic book cinema has routinely felt like a corporate conveyor belt running on autopilot, Gunn’s tenure has at least injected an unpredictable, auteur-driven ambition into a studio that desperately needed a shot in the arm.

Sure, the distinctly average Supergirl might stand as the only real blip in his reign so far, a film that stumbled into the same safe, paint by numbers studio traps we’ve grown so weary of.

But the arrival of the hugely refreshing Clayface is more than enough to make DC fans hope again.

It is a bold, uncompromising entry that proves there is still life left in comic book adaptations if you know how to break the mold.

I’ve always said that we’ve been nearing an absolute saturation point for superhero and comic book movies for a while now. Because let’s face it, there are only so many times we can slog through another standard superhero or supervillain origin story without starting to get bored out of our minds.

We know the plot beats by heart, the tragic backstory, the lab accident or ancient artifact, the montage of discovering new powers, and the inevitable third-act CGI punch-fest in a ruined city square.

And I’ve also always maintained that Marvel’s smartest tactical move to sidestep this saturation point was making films that sat firmly outside the traditional superhero genre.

Spider-Man: Homecoming wasn’t just a superhero flick, it was a John Hughes-style teen high school comedy that happened to feature Peter Parker.

Spider-Man: Far From Home was essentially a rowdy European student trip movie wearing an MCU suit. By smuggling comic book icons into established, functional film genres, you give the audience a fresh reason to care.

It looks like Gunn has brought that exact same philosophy over to DC with Clayface .

Yes, on paper, this is a supervillain origin story very much in the vein of Joker . But instead of cosplaying as a gritty, Martin Scorsese-homaging crime drama, Clayface is presented unabashedly as a full blown body horror flick.

To prove they weren’t messing around, DC brought in a legit horror director to steer the ship; James Watkins, the British filmmaker behind modern genre standouts like Eden Lake, The Woman in Black , and the recent American remake of Speak No Evil .

And who did they bring in to write the script? It’s Mike Flanagan, who’s responsible for recent horror favourites like The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Oculus, Hush and Doctor Sleep .

Watkins brings a dark, deeply uncomfortable sense of psychological dread to the narrative, which centres on washed-up young actor Matt Hagen, whose fame and fortune was cruelly taken away from him in a tragic display of stupidity that could happen to even the best of us.

Desperate to reclaim his good looks, stardom, and place in Hollywood, Hagen turns to an experimental, not-yet-approved-for-human-testing technology that promises to restore his face.

Naturally, the side effects are grotesque, and Hagen’s mind degrades alongside his liquefying anatomy.

What makes the film work so remarkably well is its thematic DNA. I really enjoyed the movie’s brilliant blend of Obsession, The Substance , and Brian Yuzna’s 1989 cult classic Society .

Like The Substance , it takes Hollywood’s toxic, ageist obsession with physical perfection and turns it into a gory, sickening farce.

But it also channels the tragic, flesh-warping tragedy of David Cronenberg’s The Fly .

Much like Jeff Goldblum’s Seth Brundle watching his own physical decay in horrified fascination, Hagen’s descent isn’t just a visual nightmare, it’s also a heartbreaking character study of a man losing his humanity and mind to his own vanity.

Visually, the film is a total triumph for practical and practical-adjacent genre fans.

The yucky, gooey special effects deserve special praise here. The sheer texture of Hagen’s dripping, shifting, and melting flesh feels horribly tactile.

It is the kind of skin-crawling, stomach-churning visual work, echoing Cronenberg’s finest biological horrors, that would absolutely belong in a hard R-rated horror flick, far away from the sanitised, plastic CG gloss we usually get in modern studio blockbusters.

Every time Hagen tries to mold his face back into shape, the wet squelches and tearing tissue make you squirm in your seat.

If I had to rate it, Clayface is a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 movie, a gripping, tragic, and genuinely terrifying ride that takes a classic Batman villain and treats his tragedy with real genre reverence.

By refusing to deliver a comfortable, toy commercial origin story and instead handing the reins to a seasoned horror director, DC has delivered one of the most delightful cinematic surprises of the year.

It proves that when you stop treating comic book properties as rigid franchises and start treating them as versatile canvases for distinct genres, the multiplex can still be a thrilling place to be.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

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詹姆斯·古恩在 DC 影业的领导下，带来了一种难以预测的雄心壮志，新电影《泥脸》为漫画改编电影带来了耳目一新的视角。

这部由詹姆斯·沃特金斯执导、迈克·弗拉纳根编剧的电影，将超级反派的起源故事改编成了一部扣人心弦的恐怖片，并辅以令人印象深刻的特效。——《泥脸》在同类型影片中脱颖而出，它着重刻画了一个黑暗而悲剧的人物，使其成为一部令人惊喜的电影，并将漫画改编作品提升到了更高的层次，而不仅仅是系列电影。

10 月 24 日——你可以对詹姆斯·古恩担任 DC 影业 CEO 期间的表现发表任何看法，但你绝对不能说他很无聊，没有尝试足够多的新事物，或者他做事过于保守。

在漫画电影常常感觉像一条自动运行的企业流水线的时代，冈恩的执掌至少为这家急需注入活力的电影公司注入了一种不可预测的、作者驱动的雄心壮志。

当然，平庸之作《女超人》可能是他执政至今唯一的真正败笔，这部电影落入了我们已经厌倦的、千篇一律的制片厂陷阱。

但令人耳目一新的泥脸的出现，足以让DC粉丝们重燃希望。

这是一部大胆、毫不妥协的作品，它证明，只要懂得打破常规，漫画改编作品仍然充满活力。

我一直都说，超级英雄和漫画改编电影早就接近饱和点了。因为说实话，我们不可能一遍又一遍地看老套的超级英雄或超级反派起源故事而不感到厌倦。

我们对剧情了如指掌：悲惨的背景故事、实验室事故或古代文物、发现新能力的蒙太奇，以及在废墟城市广场上不可避免的第三幕 CGI 打斗场面。

而且我一直认为，漫威为了避免市场饱和，采取的最明智的策略就是制作完全不属于传统超级英雄类型的电影。

《蜘蛛侠：英雄归来》不仅仅是一部超级英雄电影，它还是一部约翰·休斯风格的青少年高中喜剧，只不过主角恰好是彼得·帕克。

《蜘蛛侠：英雄远征》本质上就是一部披着漫威电影宇宙外衣的喧闹的欧洲学生旅行电影。通过将漫画偶像巧妙地融入成熟的、功能完善的电影类型中，你就能给观众一个全新的理由去关注这部电影。

看来冈恩将同样的理念带到了DC漫画的《泥脸》中。

没错，从表面上看，这的确是一部类似《小丑》的超级反派起源故事。但《泥脸》并没有伪装成一部致敬马丁·斯科塞斯的写实犯罪剧，而是毫不掩饰地呈现为一部彻头彻尾的恐怖片。

为了证明他们不是在开玩笑，DC 聘请了一位真正的恐怖片导演来掌舵；詹姆斯·沃特金斯，这位英国电影制作人曾执导过《伊甸湖》、《黑衣女人》以及最近的美国翻拍版《勿言恶语》等现代恐怖片佳作。

他们请了谁来写剧本呢？是迈克·弗拉纳根，他曾创作过《鬼入侵》、《午夜弥撒》、《鬼遮眼》、《寂静》和《睡梦医生》等近期热门恐怖片。

沃特金斯为故事注入了一种黑暗、令人极度不安的心理恐惧感。故事围绕着过气的年轻演员马特·哈根展开，他的名利在一场悲剧性的愚蠢行为中被残酷地夺走，而这种愚蠢行为甚至可能发生在我们最优秀的人身上。

为了重拾英俊的外表、明星地位和在好莱坞的地位，哈根求助于一项实验性的、尚未获准进行人体试验的技术，该技术承诺可以恢复他的容貌。

当然，副作用非常可怕，哈根的意识也随着他逐渐液化的身体而退化。

这部电影之所以如此成功，关键在于它的主题内核。我非常喜欢它巧妙地融合了《迷情》、《物质》以及布莱恩·尤兹纳1989年的邪典经典《社会》等元素。

就像《物质》一样，它将好莱坞对完美身材的病态、年龄歧视的痴迷，变成了一部血腥、令人作呕的闹剧。

但它也传递了大卫·柯南伯格的电影《变蝇人》中那种令人悲痛、扭曲人性的悲剧。

就像杰夫·高布伦饰演的塞斯·布伦德尔眼睁睁地看着自己的身体逐渐衰败，既恐惧又着迷一样，哈根的堕落不仅仅是一场视觉噩梦，更是一部令人心碎的人物研究，讲述了一个人如何因自己的虚荣心而丧失人性和理智。

从视觉上看，这部电影对于喜欢写实风格及相关风格的影迷来说绝对是一次巨大的成功。

这里令人作呕、黏糊糊的特效值得特别称赞。哈根那滴落、移动、融化的肉体，其质感令人毛骨悚然，触感极其逼真。

这是一种令人毛骨悚然、反胃的视觉作品，让人想起克罗南伯格最优秀的生物恐怖片，绝对属于 R 级恐怖电影，与我们通常在现代电影公司大片中看到的经过粉饰的、塑料般的 CG 光鲜亮丽的画面截然不同。

每当哈根试图把脸恢复原状时，湿漉漉的纸巾发出噗噗声，撕裂的纸巾发出刺耳的声音，让人坐立不安。

如果让我给这部电影打分，我会给《泥脸》打 7 分或 8 分（满分 10 分），这是一部扣人心弦、悲惨且真正恐怖的电影，它以对经典蝙蝠侠反派的尊重，展现了他的悲剧人生。

DC 没有选择讲述一个轻松愉快的玩具商业起源故事，而是将创作重任交给了一位经验丰富的恐怖片导演，从而带来了今年最令人惊喜的电影之一。

这证明，当你不再把漫画改编作品视为僵化的系列，而是把它们视为不同类型的多用途画布时，电影院仍然可以是一个令人兴奋的地方。

* 这是专栏作家的个人观点。

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