DC's First R-Rated Horror Movie Officially Proves It's a Superhero Game-Changer

Gotham has produced plenty of villains with revenge on their minds, but Matt Hagen has a particularly personal reason to hate what he sees in the mirror. A promising acting career ends when a crime boss leaves him disfigured, and the people who helped build that career abandon him. For a man whose face was his livelihood, a treatment that promises to restore it sounds like an offer he can’t refuse.

Of course, getting his old face back may be the worst thing that could happen to him. The treatment works, but it also begins to affect Matt’s grip on reality, leaving him with new abilities and a growing appetite for revenge. By the time he realizes what is happening, looking like himself might be the least of his problems. The final trailer for the DCU's Clayface has been released ahead of the movie’s October 23 theatrical release. Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt in DC Studios’ horror thriller, which follows his transformation from rising Hollywood leading man into one of Gotham’s most unsettling villains.

‘Clayface’ Gives Gotham a Different Kind of Villain

Clayface is directed by James Watkins, with a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini based on a story by Flanagan. Matt’s story starts with an attack that destroys the career he worked to build. When his team leaves him behind, an experimental treatment offers a way back, only to send him down a path of increasingly destructive revenge. That gives Clayface a horror premise rooted in something painfully familiar for an actor: the fear that changing his appearance could cost him everything. The final trailer debuts after earlier footage introduced Matt’s transformation and the movie’s body horror approach. Watkins, who directed The Woman in Black and Speak No Evil, has a villain whose abilities practically breed suspicion. Matt can recover the face that made him famous, but there is no guarantee he can keep it, or that he will still recognize himself when he does.

Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll, and Joshua James also star, while Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn, and Peter Safran produced the movie. For audiences expecting another trip to Gotham built around Batman, Clayface instead puts one of the city’s villains at the center of his own nightmare.

Clayface premieres theatrically in North America on October 23, 2026, with its international rollout beginning October 21.