Clayface takes a suitably twisted turn when Matt Hagen, having enacted his revenge on those who crossed him, kills Detective John Borrelli. He does it to save his skin and so that the scientist who cured him, Dr. Caitlyn Corr, will look at him the same way she does her fiancé.
An altercation follows, prompting Caitlyn to attack Matt with a taser and activate his nanites' "kill switch." Clayface melts away into nothing, but is later revealed to be alive, albeit as a hulking monster more in line with the comic version of the Batman villain.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Clayface director James Watkins explained why Matt decides to kill his first truly innocent victim when he dispatches John.
"Looking at it in terms of Matt’s character motivations, he’s in the crosshairs. He’s under suspicion," the filmmaker explained. "But the nanos are taking over him, and these primal impulses are bubbling up within him. So, from a normal point of view, you might go, No, no, no. But from his point of view, it’s explicable."
"It doesn’t mean we have to like it, but he’s acting out of some combination of self-defence, love and a weird obsession," Watkins revealed. "He’s just gone at that point."
Asked about the final scene in the sewer, where Matt creates and embraces a version of Caitlyn before becoming a monster, he said, "Yeah, there’s been some sort of growth [since we saw his remnants go down the storm drain]. If you look at the comics, Clayface gets quite big. He’s massive in some of them. So whatever happened during that kill-switch moment, there’s been this amplification of the monster."
"So maybe there’s just more of him, and he’s able to use a bit of him to create somebody else," Watkins continued. "What I thought was most interesting was that the superpower has a superpower. There’s potentially a collision between the two, which makes it interesting. Of course, we have quite a lot of fun with it and lean into the idea of an actor playing different characters."
While Clayface was made "very much in line with Mike’s brilliant script," Watkins revealed that the movie's standout sequence in the nightclub was one he added relatively late into production.
Revealing that he "really wanted to beef up Matt’s journey upstairs" to confront Markos Szabo, Watkins noted, "I also wanted to show Matt discovering and experiencing the dark glee that comes with his powers. He’s been on quite a tough ride to that point, and I wanted to give the audience permission to enjoy the payback."
Watkins' comments highlight how Clayface balances the tragedy of Matt Hagen's transformation with the disturbing potential of his newfound powers. While the character's desire for vengeance and his obsession with Caitlyn drives him to commit increasingly horrific acts, it's the movie's final moments that set the stage for him to become the monster we first met in Creature Commandos.
Clayface is now playing in theaters.