Clayface Review

Last night I saw Clayface with a lady friend I had previously gone on a few dates with. Her being a born-again virgin, the dates were becoming more of an exercise in self-control, and at a certain point the towel had to be thrown in. Friends it is.

I was looking forward to the movie. I had heard good things going in. Most people seem to have liked it and had it exceed their expectations. The film starts by introducing us to the lead: Matt Hagan. He’s a thoughtful actor who takes his craft seriously and cares about the people he works with. When he gets the news of an Oscar nomination, he takes it humbly, has a moment to himself to cry, and calls his mom. What a sweet guy. For any new writers, here’s a trick to get  the audience to like your lead character right away. Have them call their mom. A woman who we never meet and is irrelevant to the story, mind you. Soon after, Matt hooks up with a girl in a bar who is dating a mob boss in Gotham. This of course leads to his face being cut up, which is what we came to see. Wanting to save his acting career, Matt pursues untested facial reconstruction technology. 

The film wastes no time getting started, which usually is a good thing. But here, it doesn’t give us enough time to get to know the characters. Matt is an alright lead and the actor portraying him does a great job with the role,  but what do we know about him? He’s an actor who cares about success and his looks. Is that all? What do we know about his friend? That they’ve been friends for years? Is that it? He’s a non-character. So while I wasn’t in love with the pacing of the set-up, once Matt gets the serum that turns him into the monster the movie picks up considerably. The problem with this movie is there are a lot of moments I like, but the way they’re strung together did almost nothing for me. For example, the scene on the plane. Matt is in an airplane bathroom during turbulence, trying to cut his eyelids with a pair of scissors while someone knocks on the door. This shit is great but couldn't have taken up more than two minutes of the runtime. I wanted more stuff like this. Right when the movie is doing something cool, it's over, and we're back to doing something generic. Even him being on the plane just feels like “oh it’s time to do the plane bathroom scene that we thought would be cool” as opposed to it fitting into the story seamlessly. Nothing about the film feels fully developed. Things happen, characters do things, then the next thing happens.

The love interest is another non-character. She exists to help Matt, introduce the technology, and cheat on her husband, her husband being another non-character. Her non-character creates for a non-romance and a non-budding relationship so I extra don’t believe how down bad Matt becomes for this woman. I understand his image is important to him and this is the person who restored it, but he falls so madly in love with her that he kills her husband and expects her to just be fine with it. Yes, his morals have deteriorated but seriously, after a few weeks as her patient, you decide this is the only one who could ever understand you? Sure, okay movie. Because you said so. The writing in general is pretty lackluster. I’d put it around a C. 

With all these critiques you’d think there was nothing I liked about the movie, which is untrue. The ending image where we see him as a fully-formed monster was great. Some of the kills were creative or inventive, albeit a bit cartoonish and silly. The movie just has a drab, brown gray TV show kind of aesthetic. I wasn’t wowed by Gotham, but I wasn’t put off by it either. The antagonist in the movie might as well have been written by AI, with the prompt “create a generic Gotham crime boss”. I couldn’t tell you this guy’s name. Not one interesting, unique or remarkable quality about him. Another non-character. He’s corrupt, violent, has a cheating girlfriend. You’ve seen it done before a million times before and you’ve seen it done a million times better. I literally already forget this guy’s face and I just watched it.

Another thing:  anyone who tells you this is a horror movie is a fucking hack. This is not horror. Not even close. More of a suspenseful, revenge mystery thriller with instances of gross-out body horror. But a horror movie? Horror films typically give an eerie feel throughout. Something that could potentially haunt the viewer after and give them nightmares. Not to put horror movies in a box but they should ideally be trying to scare you. Clayface? No shot. While there were moments where I was squeamish, seeing someone’s nose cut open, etc., the film was not the nightmare-fueled slasher I thought it was destined to be. I wish it leaned more into the horror. What about a few scary sequences where we as the audience are afraid of Matt? We hear him creeping around the corner before torturing a helpless victim. I did appreciate however that they made him a true villain. He wasn’t redeemable. While we understood his motivations and what got him to this point, his actions are abhorrent and indefensible. 

Overall, I had a fine time with this movie and enjoyed a couple of the moments, but found it rather dull. To describe the movie in one word, I would probably say forgettable, or maybe predictable. I’m struggling with my score for this movie. I’m debating between a 4 and a 5. I don’t think I would ever watch it again, but some of the imagery was pretty cool to look at. So I guess I’ll give it a 5/10. Your average movie with a few memorable moments.