DC Studios takes a step into pure horror territory with Clayface – director James Watkins’ forthcoming film. Here’s the first trailer… You can’t really call yourself a tormented soul until you’ve screamed into a mirror and smashed it with your fist. In the forthcoming Clayface, it’s Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of Matt ... Clayface lays out its horror credentials in first trailer
DC Studios takes a step into pure horror territory with Clayface – director James Watkins’ forthcoming film. Here’s the first trailer…
You can’t really call yourself a tormented soul until you’ve screamed into a mirror and smashed it with your fist. In the forthcoming Clayface, it’s Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of Matt Hagen, a young actor whose body is made all gooey following an ill-advised experimental procedure. That’s enough to make anyone want to break a mirror.
The film marks a decisive step into horror territory for DC Studios, which is taking a looser, more genre-hopping approach under its (relatively) new boss, James Gunn.
Mike Flanagan, who was going to direct at one stage, has written the script with Hossein Amini; James Watkins is the director. Flanagan and Watkins both have a long track record in the horror genre, but there’s always the question of just how far a major studio is going to let them go; the first teaser trailer below suggests they’ve been allowed to dive pretty deeply into gore and icky body horror.
There are brief jabs of backstory – we get to see Hagen while he was still a handsome-up-and-coming thesp, the gangland violence that left him disfigured, and the gooey results of the science experiment that turns him into the titular Clayface.
It’s a grimdark revenge flick along the lines of The Crow and particularly Sam Raimi’s 1990 cult classic, Darkman, which was also about a disfigured hero with runny features.
Warner has kept the budget low here at $40m – not quite ultra-lean Blumhouse territory, but certainly more sensibly-priced than Gunn’s own Superman, say. It’ll certainly be a change of pace from DC’s other comic book offering for 2026 – director Craig Gillespie’s colourful Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock and in cinemas from the 26th June.
Clayface is out in UK cinemas from the 23rd October 2026 – just in time for Halloween.
