“That is my revenge inside of you.”

Being in the wrong body is terrifying. To look in the mirror and find repulsion in the topography of your own skin is nothing short of a waking nightmare. That kind of dysphoric dread is baked into the premise of James Watkins’—or is it James Gunn’s? or is it Mike Flanagan’s?—feature-length adaptation of Feat of Clay, a two part episode of the highly regarded Batman: The Animated Series. Except that in this version the Caped Crusader is nowhere to be seen. Not in passing references and not in brief cameos, a welcome divergence of the Feige formula that has dominated the box office for decades. 

When Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys-Harries in a not quite star-making turn) finds himself newly Oscar-minted and at the height of his burgeoning screen career, his time on apex mountain is cut short when an ill-chosen lover leads to his disfigurement at the hands of a crime boss in a sloppy but efficiently written opening act. 

From there we briefly sit with Matt in his agony, unable to look at his warped complexion for more than a few fleeting moments at a time. But the film is not really interested in the pain this causes Matt. This is all an excuse to get us to the gooey delights at the center of this “horror” story. Matt is quickly cured by a miracle drug treatment that’s price never seems to quite outweigh its cost. 

In the final stretch of Clayface, Hagen loses himself and his humanity to the monster that’s breaking out of him, but not before he can exact his revenge, after all this is much more of a revenge thriller than a proper scary movie. 

When the credit’s rolled, thankfully without any surprises lurking at the end of the scroll, I was left wondering what this might have looked like with just a smidge more interiority. When we find ourselves in bodies that don’t make sense, we behave in ways we can’t understand. Unfortunately, Watkins, Flanagan and Gunn don’t seem to have any thoughts on that.

★★★

Kenna Wong Ghaill