ONE OF THE SADDEST COMPROMISES of the AI-ridden age is that everything becomes about AI in some way, whether in the artefact itself or in the critical eye. Everything you see or read seems to point to AI, and if it’s not explicitly about our new gods, it’s in the subtext, in gentle nods and slight cinematic shifts that make it difficult not to think of Claude, or ChatGPT, or even Copilot. AI is everywhere, and it does everything, and it would seem, now, that everything is about AI.
Clayface is not, on the surface, about AI. It’s a body-horror movie, the first of its kind from the acclaimed superhero juggernaut, DC Studios. Clayface follows Matt Hagen (or rather, Matt Hagen is Clayface), a movie star who undergoes a radical microbiological facial surgery to maintain his job-finding good looks. As these microbes make Hagen more powerful, they begin to spiral out of control (you know what’s coming) and eventually dominate Hagen’s appearance and abilities.
The allusions to AI in Clayface are immediate, and obvious in the premise of the movie itself: a formless power, capable of morphing its appearance into anything the user desires, which eventually escapes containment and consumes the user whole. Read this way, Clayface is a fairly on-the-nose parable about the dangers of vanity, genetic modification, and - of course - AI usage, especially on such superficial matters. Hagen’s shapeshifting abilities act as a physical allegory for the rising prevalence of AI deepfakes and artificially-generative imagery. As Matt’s powers develop, he is able to "wear" different faces, and seamlessly mimic other people to spread confusion. This formlessness plays directly into modern anxieties about identity theft and our society's inability to trust what it sees.
The film also explores the dangers of an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) outgrowing its creator. Early on, Dr. Corr - Hagen’s cooperative surgeon - insists she has the AI and its nanocells completely under control, but this turns out to be typical human overconfidence. The nanobots soon begin operating unpredictably in response to Hagen's emotions and injuries, eventually taking on a life of their own as his biology is entirely rewritten by their iterative code.
The allusions to AI appear at a glance, but deeper in the thematic core of Clayface are more contemporary and cutting-edge concerns. It’s easy to draw a line from Hagen’s obsession with, and dependence on, his appearance to the modern phenomenon of looksmaxxing, where young people on the internet continue to undertake increasingly harmful methods of making their jawlines stronger, pushing their chins forward, slimming their faces, and so on.
Clayface warns us against the dangers of pursuing such goals, especially when they become ends in themselves, and we’re focused more on bettering our looks for the sake of looking better, and not for any career or sexual success. This mindset, Clayface identifies, is fertile ground for delusion and radicalisation, and the film does well to shake us by our shoulders and remind us that extreme cosmetic modification, complete AI-dependence, and an obsession with artificial perfection are not normal, and nor are they desirable. Observing Matt Hagen’s unenviable situation, we are reminded again, forcefully, of how good we have it - and what a shame it would be to hand that over to the technocratic overlords of tomorrow.
Clayface, for what is essentially a debut horror, is an extraordinarily didactic film. It is, of course, a decent horror, with all the trimmings as standard; wonderful cinematography, stock characters, thoughtful scriptwriting. Where it really excels is as an overview of our current moment - the AI bubble, the looksmaxxing craze, the superficiality bull-run. More than anything, the film is an effective confrontation of the audience, a telling-off of sorts; it’s a demonstration of the pitfalls we’re racing towards, and a plain warning against such ‘progress’.
Great review Luca!
Clever clever title you smart cookie