DC’s first genuine horror film opens in exactly one week, and the new clip released today confirms it’s going to be unlike anything the studio has produced before. Joker proved in 2019 that DC could thrive in R-rated, character-focused darkness. Clayface takes that creative permission and uses it to go somewhere far more viscerally disturbing, body horror territory that puts it closer to Cronenberg than to any previous Batman-adjacent film. James Watkins’ pedigree (The Woman in Black, Speak No Evil) combined with a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini promised something genuinely unsettling. The new clip makes clear that promise is being kept, and James Gunn has now personally recommended 12 body horror films to watch before seeing it, which is either the best or most terrifying film recommendation in DC history.
What the Clip Shows
The new scene takes place on a red-eye flight. Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) sits alone in his seat when the experiment’s side effects begin to manifest in a spectacularly gory fashion. The scene illustrates, with full R-rated commitment, what happens when a cutting-edge experimental treatment designed to heal a shattered man begins destroying his grip on reality instead.
The Story
Matt Hagen’s meteoric rise from Gotham street kid to Hollywood leading man ends catastrophically when a local crime boss leaves him horribly disfigured. His team abandons him. With nothing left, Hagen seeks out a cutting-edge treatment that miraculously restores his appearance, but unexpectedly destabilises his grasp on reality, spiralling him down a destructive path of all-consuming revenge. The story explores identity, obsession, corrosive love, and the price of scientific ambition through the lens of Gotham’s most grotesque villain origin.
The Team
James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, based on a story by Flanagan, from DC characters. Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn, and Peter Safran produce. The cast includes Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen alongside Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll, and Joshua James. Cinematography is by Rob Hardy, the score by Volker Bertelmann, and editing by Jon Harris.
Gunn himself leaned into the horror framing, publishing a personal list of 12 body horror films he recommends watching before seeing Clayface, a move that doubles as both marketing and genuine artistic context-setting for what Watkins has made.
Clayface opens in theaters October 23, 2026.
