Clayface (2026)

Plot of Clayface: After being nominated in an awards ceremony Gotham City based actor Matt Hagen goes on a night out and is seduced by Mia Torres, who is actually the girlfriend of mob boss, Markos Szabo. Szabo takes his revenge by cutting Hagen’s face up, disfiguring him, terminating his career. Hagen takes Szabo to court but the mob boss influences the witnesses and Mia claims that she had been drugged. Hagen loses and, penniless, returns to the slums where he grew up. In the news he sees scientist Caitlyn Corr who is experimenting with nanites, which if injected into the body will rebuild it in its original form. Matt persuades her to experiment on him with apparent success, but at an awards ceremony his face collapses again causing him to dash back to Caitlyn’s laboratory. There he injects himself with a massive dose of nanites which results in him gaining the ability to transform himself into anyone he wants. With this ability he goes on a spree of revenge, starting with his former agent. But Caitlyn’s partner, a policeman, is on the case.

Content: No actual sex, but Mia gets out of his bed and is naked. Some drinking I think. This film is billed as body horror and so the cutting up of Matt’s face is quite explicit, as are his experiments when he cuts himself to see if the nanites will repair him, and they do. It turns out that by concentrating on the person he wishes to appear to be his appearance can change, but to keep us in the picture he changes back briefly at times.  Interacting with the mob he spends time in their nightclub, Vesuvius, where basically he kills all the villains, tricking them by changing his appearance. There is a fun dance scene in the nightclub. But gradually he seems to be changing into a sort of amorphous mass. He develops feelings for Caitlyn but she does not reciprocate his love.

A View: The film’s possible $44 million budget probably means that it has made money. It was made in Britain using mainly British actors and it is said that they are cheaper than Americans. This film is a DC Comics outing, which apparently takes place in Gotham City, but really you would not know if you were not told. There is no trace of Tim Burton’s wonderful gothic Gotham. That being said it is alarming at times. I had to look away from some of the scenes as Matt grapples with his disfigurement. But if we don’t worry about its intended associations, it is worth the cost of a ticket.

Fun Fact: Once more, Liverpool stands in for what is really supposed to eb an American city.

Note: Nanites are sort tiny invisible robots which can construct anything. As nanobots they feature in Red Dwarf and in some William Gibson books.