So James Gunn comes out and says, point blank, that his upcoming DC Studios film Clayface is "unequivocally" a horror movie, not a superhero flick with scary bits. My first thought? Well, duh. But my second thought, after the teaser dropped and I saw who was steering this monster, was a lot more interesting. They hired James Watkins.
WHEN YOUR DIRECTOR'S RESUME IS A WARNING LABEL
If you're making a tragic monster movie about a Hollywood actor losing his face and his soul, you could go a few ways. You could go for gothic opera. You could lean into the tragic romance. Or, apparently, you could hire the guy who wrote and directed Eden Lake. Let that sink in. James Watkins isn't known for grandeur or pathos; he's the maestro of brutal, grounded, social horror where the real monster is the person next to you. Eden Lake is a relentless, nasty piece of work about class warfare that leaves you needing a shower. The Woman in Black is a solid, old-fashioned ghost story. His 2024 remake of Speak No Evil? Let's just say it doesn't end with a hug. This is a filmmaker obsessed with the horrors of polite society collapsing into primal violence. Applying that sensibility to a shapeshifting clay monster is a wild, fascinating swing. It suggests this won't be a CGI slugfest, but a grim character study about the monster inside a man — literally.
THE FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER IN THE WRITING ROOM
Now look at the writing credits. We've got Mike Flanagan on story, which brings hope for that emotional, character-driven horror he's famous for. But the screenplay is by Hossein Amini, a writer known for dense, psychological thrillers like Drive and The Wings of the Dove. And the director is James Watkins, who will undoubtedly put his own grim stamp on it. This feels less like a cohesive vision and more like three very distinct horror sensibilities being shoved into a blender. Will we get Flanagan's heart, Amini's psychological complexity, or Watkins' unflinching brutality? The synopsis talks about "the loss of identity and humanity, the ravages of toxic love and the dark side of scientific ambition." That's prime The Fly territory. But can Watkins deliver that tragedy, or will it just be trauma?
FORGET SUPERHEROES, THINK BODY HORROR
Gunn is smart to distance this from the cape-and-cowl crowd. The keywords tell the real story: monster, shapeshifting, tragedy, clay, body horror. This isn't Iron Man suiting up. This is a classic descent narrative. Think Dracula's curse of immortality, or The Host's family tragedy wrapped in a creature feature. The casting of Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen is promising. He'll need to sell the man before the monster. And with a cinematographer like Rob Hardy on board, you know the visuals will be striking, even when they're horrifying.
Is framing it as pure horror a marketing ploy? Maybe. But with this creative team, it might just be the truth. James Watkins doesn't do half-measures. His films are commitments to a specific, often punishing, vibe. The real question for Clayface isn't whether it's scary — it's whether its horror has a soul, or if it's just going to pummel us into clay.
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