Clayface Gets a Movie

 

You know... 

There may be something to letting film makers pick any lesser known comic character they like and feel passionate about a story for. It sure beats trying to make sure every film is well linked to everything else before worrying about telling the tale.

Clayface was clearly influenced by the Jeff Goldblum The Fly film, but it was definitely its own animal. The film was set in a highly recognizable Gotham City, but that wasn't really key to the tale. No Bat shadows in the background, no name dropping other villains, only a couple locations named after Comic Book creators, as all good version of Gotham should have. 

Speaking of comics (as I do with alarming frequency): the film made the right choice of selecting the version of Clayface from Batman: The Animated Series. Not counting one offs, there are at least six Clayfaces in the comics now, and not a single one of them is as interesting as the hybrid of the first two that the cartoon created. For fellow comic geeks, that's a modified back story and profession for the original, Golden Age Clayface- the powerless actor Basil Karlo, with the power set and name of the second Clayface, Matt Hagen.

This was unquestionably a horror film, both for what Matt became and what he was already. 

For a body horror, action film, I ended up thinking a lot about it. 

The movie was shot and the characters were introduced in the same way that a tragic tale would be presented. The situations were presented in a way that's been done frequently:

The good hearted poor kid, who achieves success through his skills, but tragically loses everything, and transforms both physically and mentally.

The brilliant Doctor, lacking in business sense who has corporations take advantage of her.

The tried and true friend, who lacks the hero's bravery and gets caught up worrying about his family.

The spitefully evil organized crime boss.

But after where everyone ends up, I'm noticing more and more things from earlier scenes in the film that showed:

That poor kid may not have been all that good hearted to begin with.

The brilliant doctor may be a Mad Scientist. (It is Gotham after all.)

The friend may not be tried nor true... or he may be.

That organized crime boss... was spitefully evil. (Some cliches are good.)

It worked as a horror movie on a lot of levels. Its amazing how many variations of "oh, that's icky" they worked into one adventure.

The action and effects were really well done as well. It does feel like it lives in a corner of the DC universe. But its a pretty nasty, yet impressively done, corner.

How could Ricky September fall so far?