I’m taking a brief break for 31 Days of Halloween, covering the Michael Myers movies, to look at Clayface (2026). We’ll be back with the final films in the Halloween franchise following this brief diversion into the latest DC Studios film that seems tailor-made for Halloween.
I found the movie to be a fun throwback to an earlier time and it bears a lot of similarities to another movie I watched this month. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Batman has always been the superhero I most associate with Halloween. It’s not just about thousands of kids dressing as the Dark Knight on October 31st every year (as Spider-Man would also have a claim to Halloween in this case), but rather the Batman franchise has the qualities of Halloween I most associate with the season. The world of Batman, or at least the Batman I love, tends to be dark, creepy, and fairly grim. Even a lot of kid-friendly Batman adaptations tend to have some of these tonal markers, just in less extreme qualities. Like any multibillion-dollar franchise, Batman has a flexibility that allows it to reach the broadest audience possible while simultaneously leaning into a specific tone for a specific audience.
One of the things I enjoy most about James Gunn’s current DCU is that there is an emphasis on these superhero films and media having specific tones. With James Watkins’ Clayface (2026) we get a very horror-centric project in the larger DC Comics universe that does not feature a mainline superhero, but rather one of his more iconic but least utilized rogues. Though Batman is not present in the film, Clayface does a fantastic job filling in the world in which we’ll one day see the Caped Crusader.
Batman: Madman and Monster
Part of the appeal of Batman to me is those Halloween vibes, specifically in that Batman primarily fights two kinds of evil in Gotham City: madmen and monsters. This is fitting because these two strains of villainy are a dark mirror of who Batman is. He is a psychologically damaged soldier taking the law into his own hands, while also taking monstrous and violent action to strike terror in the criminal population, with the repercussions of terrifying the city in the wake of his actions. Gotham City is such a breeding ground for monsters and madmen that it takes a little of both to try to save the city.
In that way, a lot of Batman’s rogues are also reflections of the man himself. In early comics Batman fought a lot of gangsters and industrialists. But the theatricality of the Bat results in a reaction where the criminals become more theatrical as well. It’s an arms race of creeps in the world’s most horror-tinged city. Many adaptations also follow this very thread of escalation in Batman’s presence creating a new kind of criminal unique to Gotham. Sure, DC has any number of fictional cities with rogues, but none quite like those from Gotham as far as cruelty and monstrosity are concerned for most fans.
It’s not hard to imagine a narrative where Batman, instead of being a hero, embraces his monstrosity and madness. It’s been done before. It will be done to death over the next twenty years. In that way, Batman is not too far removed from his rogues, and it makes a lot of sense how the rogues could lead their own films. That is exactly the case with Clayface’s Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) because, if one didn’t know who Clayface was, one could be mistaken that a good portion of the film’s runtime could have set Hagen/Clayface as a vigilante, not unlike Batman himself. Where Batman in most cases is one bad choice from being just like his rogues, with the exception of his willpower and monk-like discipline to maintaining his mission, Clayface takes the path of embracing monstrosity.
Clayface: Movieland Monster
The Matt Hagen of Clayface borrows heavily from the original Basil Karlo version of the character from the comics and mostly just cribs his name off the second incarnation of the character. Karlo is a B-level actor who is driven insane by being replaced in a remake of one of his movies and murders people while dressed in a movie costume. The original Matt Hagen of the comics was a treasure hunter who gains clay-like power from a mysterious substance in a cave. So the film has an origin cribbed from Karlo but with a power set of Hagen. You can say this is more or less in the same mold of the DC Animated Universe version.
The DC Animated Universe, beginning with Batman: The Animated Series, has had a major influence on the current DCU so far as. For many fans the DCAU had a tremendous influence on how certain characters are remembered – characters like Clayface. It’s a smart strategy because the Clayface of that animated series is so well handled as a fusion of the two different versions that it ended up being the definitive take. It’s been like that for multiple characters from DC Comics as well. That animated universe feels very much like a template for the current film continuity.
Part of my enjoyment of Clayface was due to me relating it quite a bit to my recent experience rewatching The Invisible Man (1933). That comes across in two ways. The first is that the film plays with the image-obsessed celebrity angle of the most iconic adaptations of Clayface as a character: actor, prideful, disfigured, madness, and monstrosity. It’s a template that builds on an old Hollywood vibe, and while Clayface is set in a modern time, the darker aspect of Hollywood plays out in the film as part of the film is set in another iconic DC locale, Coast City.
The second angle of it all is that the movie very much follows the template of The Invisible Man and has the feel of a Universal Monster film. The only real difference between Matt Hagen and Dr. Jack Griffin is a PhD. Both are men who become obsessed and disfigured (Griffin cannot control his invisibility, after all) and lose their minds when they realize the power they have. They are both presented as tragic in the sense of filmic romance, and they are both driven to self-destruction by their obsession and their minds fracturing under the science that puts them into the circumstances they are in. Both men go on a crime spree, Hagen for pride and bitter vengeance, Griffin for pride and fascistic impulse.
I’d be genuinely interested to see a black-and-white version of Clayface. I think the film’s combination of shadows and neon lights would be a fascinating take on what exists and lend a noirish quality to the underlying horror. The film already leans heavily into horrific Hollywood and the Universal Monsters-style of storytelling, and a black-and-white version feels like it is a missing piece to something a little more transformative. The film is solid, not perfect. The flesh may be lumpy and misshapen in spots, but the bones are good – conceptually. This movie hits right in my q-zone.
The fact that we are fortunate enough to have a DC Studios movie that is essentially a Universal Monster movie, set in Gotham City, is something I find incredibly interesting. It feels so very on point that it’s even wilder that the whole concept was pitched by Mike Flanagan. The odds, for me, a monster fan, comic fan, and Hollywood nerd, that I find a movie so very much in my interest arriving in October, no less, feel like DC Studios attempting to seduce me.
I don’t know how James Gunn and Peter Safran knew I’d be writing these essays this month, but their timing could not be better. Thanks, guys. Good movie.
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[…] We’ll be wrapping the final three Halloween films, starting with Halloween (2018), following yesterday’s brief diversion into Clayface. […]