Clayface

Clayface brings R-rated body horror to this origin story of a Batman villain. The film stars Tom Rhys Harries as an actor whose dream life crumbles after an encounter with a mob boss leaves him disfigured. Desperate for a solution, he receives a revolutionary procedure involving nanotechnology powered by AI. What could go wrong? Director James Watkins goes hard on the horror elements, but is the DC Universe big enough to go beyond superhero fare, and take a walk on the creepy, crawly side? For more Batman villains on screen, check out these episodes: In 'The Penguin' a C-list villain gets an A-list series https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/1211597537/pop-culture-happy-hour-draft-11-07-2024 'Joker: Folie à Deux' is much a deux about nothing https://www.npr.org/2024/10/04/1203595454/joker-folie-a-deux-is-much-a-deux-about-nothing Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:18Glen Weldon?

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• 0:38Speaker 02

  I do think it hits certain nostalgia buttons.

• 0:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  That people who miss Hot Topic will still dig it, you know?

• 0:46Speaker 03

  I mean, Hot Topic's still around.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, shout out to Hot Topic, yeah.

• 0:49Glen Weldon?

  Still around.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  I was always more of a journeys kind of guy, but you know.

• 0:56Glen Weldon?

  The new film Clayface isn't the first movie focused on a Batman villain. It's not the first superhero adjacent film that's rated R, but it is the first villain-centered, R-rated body horror film. And those horror elements go hard, which is to say, not hard at all, pretty squelchy, in fact. And yes, it is the origin story of a C-list member of Batman's Rogues Gallery, but it's also a test case. Is the DC Universe big enough to go beyond superhero fare and take a walk on the creepy crawly side? I'm Glen Weldon, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Regina Barber. She's a host and reporter for NPR's science podcast, Short Wave. Hey Regina.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Hey, Batman Forever.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  That's a different movie, guys. What are you talking about?

• 1:39Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:40Glen Weldon?

  It is. But is it? We'll get to it. Also with us is Andrew Limbong. He's the host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast and a reporter for The Culture Desk. Welcome, Andrew.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  What's up, Glenn? Never say squelchy again. Come on.

• 1:51Glen Weldon?

  Oh, it's gonna come on. Trust me.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  Oh, it's giving me flashbacks to the movie.

• 1:55Glen Weldon?

  Yes, absolutely. So in Clayface, actor Matt Hagan has got it all. He's played by Tom Reese Harrys. Higgins live in large, but when an encounter with a mob boss leaves him disfigured, his dream life quickly, really quickly, falls apart. Desperate for a solution, he reaches out to a scientist, played by Naomi Aki, who's got a revolutionary procedure involving nanotechnology that becomes part of Matt's body, and it's powered by AI. So what could possibly go wrong? Director James Watkins knows his way around horror thrillers, having directed films like Speak No Evil, The Woman in Black, and the very nasty piece of work called Eden Lake back in the day. Clayface is in theaters now. Andrew, kick us off. Where'd you come down on this?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Not enough clay and not enough face?

• 2:38Glen Weldon?

  Okay.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  I don't know if the horror billing is necessarily fair. It is, or rather, the body horror billing isn't necessarily accurate. I thought its intentions at the beginning were strong. I wanted more of the body horror-y stuff.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  I did not.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  But then come midway to like the third act, it kind of ditches all the body horror psychology and turns it into something else. And it's like, I'm left mid on it because I think the movie seems unconvinced as to what it wants to be.

• 3:07Glen Weldon?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  That's my genre, but we'll get into it.

• 3:09Glen Weldon?

  We'll get into it because I do think we're trying to serve two masters here. How about you, Regina?

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I am the opposite of Andrew. We are complementary. I did not want any more of the body horror stuff. I am a diehard Batman, the animated series fan. So when I saw that they were doing a Clayface movie, I was like, why? This guy is so random. And I'm not a horror person. I wanted to see it for the character. I really liked the beginning, and I actually did like the story at the end because it was less like heads exploding and stuff and stabbing on the face. Like, I couldn't handle that. I was actually next to our producer under my jacket for 25% of the movie. I kind of liked the story, but I didn't enjoy the stabbings.

• 3:53Glen Weldon?

  The stabby and the face melty, yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Which is why people would want to see this movie, I understand. But actually, as a Batman fan, I kind of liked the story.

• 4:00Glen Weldon?

  Yeah, you see, you both have nailed exactly what my issue with is. It's like, I'm not sure who it's for. I mean, like, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool superhero guy. I like the superhero elements of this, which, as Andrew mentioned, come in pretty late, but when they come in, they come in hard. I am a guy who spent most of this film, you know, doing my usual thing, which is staring at the bottom left corner of the screen. Regina, that's my trick for that kind of stuff.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  No, I was just making sounds to Mike, our producer. I was like, oh, my God, no, no.

• 4:28Glen Weldon?

  But see, this is it. I mean, this film didn't turn out to be what I worried it was going to be. It's not Morbius. It's not Kraven. I do think sometimes it thinks it wants to be Joker, which more is a pity because I hated that movie, because I think it sometimes is trying to say something about society. Joker had nothing to say about society that King of Comedy and Taxi Driver hadn't already said.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  And your average 14-year-old boy couldn't figure it out.

• 4:50Glen Weldon?

  There is also that.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Well, I think it was trying to go down like the Blade route, which Blade was like awesome, right? And it was very bloody, but in like a comical way that I could handle. And this was like comical towards the end, but like not comical in the beginning of the horror. So it was all kind of all over the place.

• 5:06Glen Weldon?

  Yeah. I mean, to its credit, it's not a long movie, right? It doesn't waste time putting the pieces in place and then setting them in motion. Because I mentioned how quickly things go south for Matt. It's funny how they go south.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Well, it makes sense.

• 5:19Glen Weldon?

  It does, right? But this is where I'm kind of giving the film a benefit of the doubt here.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:22Glen Weldon?

  If it was attempting to be like this character study or a meditation on the facade we show the world, which it flirts with, but it really isn't about that. But this is, at the end of the day, this is a revenge flick, right? And films like Old Boy and Kill Bill and John Wick, they're lean. They don't give you layers of characterization and nuance.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  No, they're just like, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.

• 5:41Glen Weldon?

  They create the tension, they release it, right? Visceral thrills, catharsis. The film this most reminded me of, certainly on a plot level, is Sam Raimi's Darkman from way back in 1990. But what all of those films I mentioned have that this really doesn't is style. Style for days. This thing just sort of sits there.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I will say, I think it more than flirts with wanting to try and say something about a physical appearance. The guy's an actor. There's a lot of stuff about him, you know, getting his like picture taken when he shows up at the premiere. His physical presence is extremely important. And when it flirts with the self-harm-ish aspects of it, when he's like, you know, and all the cuttings, I do think that stuff is interesting, and it almost gets there. But then, yeah, it sort of veers into all the comic booky stuff, and it left me wanting more. It takes a second for his quote-unquote powers to really come into play, right? And I think, we all know Clayface, when it becomes clear that he can regenerate

• 6:39Speaker 02

  parts of himself, it sort of kills any of the stakes of all the, any body horror things going forward, right? Because who cares then if he's slicing off his fingers? Because we know that they're going to grow. But it sort of, you know, pulls the chair out from under him, and it diffuses any sort of tension in the horror, at least aspect, and once it kicks into gear of superhero mode.

• 7:00Glen Weldon?

  Yeah, that's a good point. We've got more thoughts about Clayface after the break.

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• 7:57Glen Weldon?

  Welcome back. Regina, I'd like to go to you now. What's on your mind?

• 8:00Speaker 03

  When I was a kid and I was watching, you know, this cartoon that I was obsessed with, I didn't really care about Clayface at all because, you know, he's about like, he wanted to look good. And I thought it was a little progressive that it was a dude trying to look good, not a woman. But like, I was watching old clips from the show to prepare for watching for this movie, and he's like, my cream, my cream. I have to reapply after 24 hours. And I'm like, that's me now. Oh, no. Like, it really hit me hard, like, as a mid-40s woman. I was like, oh, my God.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  He's like, my Korean skincare routine.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's my Chinese lady cream.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  It was hitting me a lot harder with this like desperation to like hold on to your looks. I was like, oh, like, as a middle-aged woman, I'm like, I get this now. So I do think that there is something there.

• 8:48Glen Weldon?

  There is something there. It does get weird eventually. It does get funny eventually. There's a scene in an airplane bathroom.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't watch that part.

• 8:56Glen Weldon?

  On the most hilariously turbulent flight. That's very funny, but not weird enough, not distinctive enough. And that surprised me because I love Mike Flanagan. He co-wrote this. Now, Mike Flanagan, of course, is the guy behind The Haunting of Hill House and The Fall of the House of Usher, and most recently, the adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie on Prime Video. But man, the first 15, 20 minutes of this movie felt like just big, huge clots of exposition, just kind of thudding onto the theater floor.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:24Glen Weldon?

  Like, for example, we'll see a news report say something, and then in the next scene, a character will repeat the thing that we just saw in the news report. Like, dude, we were there. There is so much underlining and bold facing. And I always thought that fun against better than that. But I don't know. Again, I'm torn here because when you feel the mechanism of the plot, when you feel the gears working, you know, in the beginning, Matt goes on a very smarmy talk show.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  I liked that a lot.

• 9:49Glen Weldon?

  Hosted by a very smarmy Welsh actor I like, Rob Brydon. And he makes Matt say a catchphrase from one of his movies. And we've all seen movies before, folks. We know the catchphrase is coming back. But so what? You know, I kept thinking, is that just thin, really underwritten first draft script? Or is that just setting up the pins so you can watch him fall? Isn't that just one of the pleasures of a movies like this?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Okay, but that catchphrase, right, is something along the lines of like, tell your boss I'm coming, right? And it comes back and he says that to a goon who he kills. Who's that guy gonna tell?

• 10:22Glen Weldon?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  I thought the same thing. I thought the same thing. I was yelling at Mike and I was like, he not gonna tell anybody he's dead.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, his face just got smashed in. What's the point?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Spoiler. But like, I do want to come back to this talk show host because I think the layout of the set of the talk show and even the character of the talk show was so Batman, the animated series. It was so like, suddenly those humans were pulled out of a cartoon. Like, it was so good. You know, the whole, when you say like, is it kind of cheesy? Does it need to be written that way? I kind of think it did. I think it really fit in that scene. I don't know. What about you, Andrew?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Do you know what's interesting on that? You can tell it's trying to be like the animated series because it is confused about how people today consume media. I think someone in this movie buys a physical newspaper, you know, and someone, and Matt also like finds out the news about the science lady through like a GQ wannabe physical magazine.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  There's something very 90s about it. People still have cell phones, so it takes place today, but it pretends it's in the 90s at some point.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  And it kind of looks 90s, too.

• 11:30Glen Weldon?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  But I think the Batman was kind of like that as well. Like, if you go to the Our Pats Batman, it is kind of straddling many decades of kind of what it looks like. Same with the Penguin.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Sure. Are we calling him Our Pats? Is that what we're calling him these days?

• 11:44Speaker 03

  I call him Our Pats. Yeah, everyone calls him Our Pats. Ever since he was Cedric Diggory, I called him Our Pats. So we go way back.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. You guys, you boys go way back. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:53Glen Weldon?

  Yeah. And speaking of Our Pats, we should note here that Clayface is not part of the Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson, the Batman, the Penguin universe. This is set in the DCU. They're doing their own thing over there. And this is our introduction to the Gotham in the DCU.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  But you could be forgiven for thinking it was, right? It's so silly.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  It so fits.

• 12:13Glen Weldon?

  It's just a rainy, dark city. It's just.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  I think it would be smart of DC, even if they want to play this like, we are separate for a little while, just like Sony and Marvel did, and then kind of recombine later, like Clayface does. They should.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  That's a, that's a good one. I like that.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 12:33Glen Weldon?

  Look, as we've already mentioned, Matt has a superpower that he uses against those who wronged him. But he's also, his face is melting off, right? So I just don't know if we're going to satisfy anybody with this movie. I mean, I think the body horror folks are going to want more face melty stuff. And the superhero people like me, like I was, I was in Gina's camp. I was like, I could do less of this whole face stuff. And the other thing that happens in this movie is that it's uncanny valley, right? Like, when something is going off with his face, it's creepy. The closer it gets to the superhero stuff, the farther it gets into like, just goop monster, the more it becomes kind of superhero-y and goofy. And all the horror just kind of leeches out of it, right?

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. I would say the last scene, you're like, yeah, that comic book.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Guys, we're also forgetting, there's a romance in this movie.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  No, I was about to say that, too.

• 13:23Glen Weldon?

  Sort of.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Love triangle.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I'm like, there's rom-coms, and then there's also rom horror. Like, it's just, it was very strange. Especially, there's this one scene where it gets very like sexual. And I was just like, oh, what is happening?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's another thing. I feel like it's trying to shoo it. Although I do.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  It made sense.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  It does. And I think the payoff of the romance in the final scene actually kind of worked for me because that is what.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  That is actually what most reminded me of like the Clayface from the animated series.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:52Glen Weldon?

  I mean, there are Easter eggs to Batman, the animated series. There's references to the Batman universe here. At the end of the day, though, I'm not sure if this is going to work for pretty much anybody completely, 100%, right?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  People at the screening near me, I don't know if it was like loaded with, with a certain type of.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Lovers.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. But they, people seemed hyped about it, which I was kind of confused by. But people were like.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Me, too.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Hooting and hollering and clapping and cheering. I was like, is this that kind of movie?

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, clapping and laughing at scenes that weren't that funny.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know if there, you know, there was just like packed with like influencers trying to be like, you know, show off about how awesome this and shit the movie is. I do think it hits certain nostalgia buttons that people who miss Hot Topic will still dig it, you know?

• 14:42Speaker 03

  I mean, Hot Topic's still around.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Shout out to Hot Topic.

• 14:45Glen Weldon?

  Still around.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  I was always more of a journeys kind of guy, but you know.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  I want to say that I think it's a long game. I think it can work in the future. And this is why, because when you watch Batman, the animated series, a lot of it is like the villains and Batman, but a lot of it is like organized crime. And like organized crime is really what is the problem of Gotham. It isn't Batman. It isn't Joker. It's honestly like just regular people being horrible. And like, that's what the Penguin's about. That's why the Penguin has won awards. Like, because we're focusing on the mob bosses, just like we did in the Batman, Our Pats Batman, I feel like that's such a smart way to kind of link all of these things together because Sopranos, all that stuff, it's popular,

• 15:31Speaker 03

  right? Like, focus on this organized crime aspect. I think it's gonna work.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. The main bad guy here, though, does seem to be the most generic, run-of-the-mill mob boss you could pull off the shelf. You know what I mean?

• 15:44Speaker 03

  I liked his henchmen.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, the henchmen's are always fun. They're always greasy in a fun kind of way. All of their hair was done up in a, in a fun.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't know. I think this movie isn't the most amazing, but it is foundational. That's how I see it.

• 15:57Glen Weldon?

  Yes. But does it have feet of clay, Regina? That's the question. That's the question.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Does that mean it doesn't stand?

• 16:02Glen Weldon?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:03Glen Weldon?

  The thing, two vast and trunkless legs of stone.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  But they're gonna harden and then finally, like, it's gonna stop raining at some point.

• 16:11Glen Weldon?

  Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, look, we have arranged ourselves along a spectrum here. Some of us wanted more superhero stuff. Andrew wanted more horror stuff. Where do you come down? Because that's ultimately what this thing is. And Regina's absolutely right. This is a long game. This is James Gunn's first attempt at Gotham. We're gonna get more.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  For better or worse.

• 16:31Glen Weldon?

  For better, for worse. You know that we're all in it.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  We're gonna get those playing card family. You know what I'm talking about.

• 16:36Glen Weldon?

  Totally. The Royal Flush Gang. Yes, it's coming. It's coming. All right. Well, that brings us to the end of our show. Regina Barber, Andrew Limbuck, thank you so much for being here.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 16:46Glen Weldon?

  This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kate Mills, and Mike Katsev, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. And Halokhemen provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.

• 17:00Speaker 00

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