Say what you want about James Gunn's reign as the CEO of DC Studios, but you certainly can't say that he's been boring, that he hasn't tried enough new things, or that he's played things safe.
In an era where comic book cinema has routinely felt like a corporate conveyor belt running on autopilot, Gunn's tenure has at least injected an unpredictable, auteur-driven ambition into a studio that desperately needed a shot in the arm.
Sure, the distinctly average Supergirl might stand as the only real blip in his reign so far, a film that stumbled into the same safe, paint by numbers studio traps we've grown so weary of.
But the arrival of the hugely refreshing Clayface is more than enough to make DC fans hope again.
It is a bold, uncompromising entry that proves there is still life left in comic book adaptations if you know how to break the mould.
I've always said that we've been nearing an absolute saturation point for superhero and comic book movies for a while now. Because let's face it, there are only so many times we can slog through another standard superhero or supervillain origin story without starting to get bored out of our minds.
We know the plot beats by heart, the tragic backstory, the lab accident or ancient artifact, the montage of discovering new powers, and the inevitable third-act CGI punch-fest in a ruined city square.
And I've also always maintained that Marvel's smartest tactical move to sidestep this saturation point was making films that sat firmly outside the traditional superhero genre.
Spider-Man: Homecoming wasn't just a superhero flick, it was a John Hughes-style teen high school comedy that happened to feature Peter Parker.
Spider-Man: Far From Home was essentially a rowdy European student trip movie wearing an MCU suit. By smuggling comic book icons into established, functional film genres, you give the audience a fresh reason to care.
It looks like Gunn has brought that exact same philosophy over to DC with Clayface.
Yes, on paper, this is a supervillain origin story very much in the vein of Joker. But instead of cosplaying as a gritty, Martin Scorsese-homaging crime drama, Clayface is presented unabashedly as a full blown body horror flick.
To prove they weren't messing around, DC brought in a legit horror director to steer the ship; James Watkins, the British filmmaker behind modern genre standouts like Eden Lake, The Woman in Black, and the recent American remake of Speak No Evil.
And who did they bring in to write the script? It's Mike Flanagan, who's responsible for recent horror favourites like The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Oculus, Hush and Doctor Sleep.
Watkins brings a dark, deeply uncomfortable sense of psychological dread to the narrative, which centres on washed-up young actor Matt Hagen, whose fame and fortune was cruelly taken away from him in a tragic display of stupidity that could happen to even the best of us.
Desperate to reclaim his good looks, stardom, and place in Hollywood, Hagen turns to an experimental, not-yet-approved-for-human-testing technology that promises to restore his face.
Naturally, the side effects are grotesque, and Hagen's mind degrades alongside his liquefying anatomy.
What makes the film work so remarkably well is its thematic DNA. I really enjoyed the movie's brilliant blend of Obsession, The Substance, and Brian Yuzna's 1989 cult classic Society.
Like The Substance, it takes Hollywood's toxic, ageist obsession with physical perfection and turns it into a gory, sickening farce.
But it also channels the tragic, flesh-warping tragedy of David Cronenberg's The Fly.
Much like Jeff Goldblum's Seth Brundle watching his own physical decay in horrified fascination, Hagen's descent isn't just a visual nightmare, it's also a heartbreaking character study of a man losing his humanity and mind to his own vanity.
Visually, the film is a total triumph for practical and practical-adjacent genre fans.
The yucky, gooey special effects deserve special praise here. The sheer texture of Hagen's dripping, shifting, and melting flesh feels horribly tactile.
It is the kind of skin-crawling, stomach-churning visual work, echoing Cronenberg's finest biological horrors, that would absolutely belong in a hard R-rated horror flick, far away from the sanitised, plastic CG gloss we usually get in modern studio blockbusters.
Every time Hagen tries to mould his face back into shape, the wet squelches and tearing tissue make you squirm in your seat.
If I had to rate it, Clayface is a solid seven or eight out of 10 movie, a gripping, tragic, and genuinely terrifying ride that takes a classic Batman villain and treats his tragedy with real genre reverence.
By refusing to deliver a comfortable, toy commercial origin story and instead handing the reins to a seasoned horror director, DC has delivered one of the most delightful cinematic surprises of the year.
It proves that when you stop treating comic book properties as rigid franchises and start treating them as versatile canvases for distinct genres, the multiplex can still be a thrilling place to be.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
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