I watched the first Clayface footage in a crowded CinemaCon ballroom and felt the air tilt. You could hear a collective, involuntary intake of breath when the bandages opened and the eyes were still there. For a beat it was obvious why DC handed this story to James Gunn and company before another Batman film.
At CinemaCon the room hushed as Warner Bros. rolled the first images.
I’ve sat through plenty of footage reveals; this one landed differently. Peter Safran, sitting next to the DC banner and James Gunn’s name in the program, introduced film clips that were eerie, viscous, and deliberately uncomfortable. Calling Clayface “a riveting horror thriller” wasn’t marketing hyperbole — it was a blue-chip warning that this won’t be a standard comic-book origin.
On screen a hospital bed anchored the sequence and made people lean forward.
The footage opens on harsh yellow light and a man wrapped in bloody bandages, eyes unnervingly wide. Quick, jarring cuts show surgical tools, injections, faces being carved — fragments that read like memory or evidence. Then the camera follows Matt Hagen, played by Tom Rhys Harries, sprinting through neon-lit tunnels and past a Gotham police cruiser; you feel his panic as if you were the one running.
When does Clayface come out?
The film is set to arrive in theaters on October 23. Warner Bros. and DC Films have positioned it as an autumn release slot that favors horror-tinged tentpoles and festival-friendly conversation.
In the footage a single image made the hall clap and gasp at once.
Harries looks ordinary, then places a hand to his forehead and drags it down — his face peels away and is revealed to be clay. The practical-effect shock is physical; the footage hit like a fist to the sternum. That one moment turns a comic-book conceit into visceral movie horror.
Who plays Clayface in the new movie?
Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, the man who becomes Clayface, with Naomi Ackie in a supporting lead. Behind the scenes, the script comes from Mike Flanagan and James Watkins directs, a pairing that blends Flanagan’s horror instincts with Watkins’ visual discipline.
At the strategy level the choice to open a DC phase with this film was intentional and telling.
James Gunn and Peter Safran are steering a DC slate that needs tonal variety, and Clayface offers a low-profile, high-risk experiment in atmosphere over spectacle. If the movie functions like the footage suggests, it will reframe how the studio introduces lesser-known villains: grounded, unsettling, intimate. His face sliding away, like wet clay from a potter’s hands, signals practical effects and body-horror tactics over CGI showboating.
Is Clayface a horror movie?
Yes — Safran called it a “riveting horror thriller,” and the CinemaCon clips support that label. The film sits where psychological horror and comic-book pathology meet, aimed at viewers who follow filmmakers as much as franchises: think Mike Flanagan’s audience plus traditional DC fans.
You can already imagine the distribution and conversation hooks: Warner Bros. will tease select clips on YouTube, coverage will spread via Twitter and Instagram, and cinephiles will parse Flanagan’s fingerprints while box-office trackers like Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes watch the reaction curve. The film’s October release also positions it for late-season awards chatter and genre festivals.
Written by Mike Flanagan, directed by James Watkins, and starring Tom Rhys Harries and Naomi Ackie, Clayface is scheduled to hit theaters October 23 — and it feels like a dare to the rest of the DC slate. Are you ready to see a villain become horrific rather than just big and expensive?
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