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‘Clayface’ Practical Suit Revealed in New Behind-The-Scenes Look

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Warner Bros. Pictures

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DC Studios’ first horror movie has spent the past few weeks unsettling audiences, and now fans are getting a closer look at how its monster was made. The practical suit built for ‘Clayface’ has surfaced online, and it shows that much of the film’s creature work started with a real, physical build. The film is a horror thriller from director James Watkins, starring Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of the cult favorite villain from Gotham’s rogues’ gallery.

The film has also done well at the box office. Variety noted that ‘Clayface’ nearly earned back its entire $44 million budget with a $43 million global opening weekend, beating expectations. It has since passed $91 million worldwide.

Now fans are seeing the creature without CGI. DiscussingFilm shared a first look at the practical ‘Clayface’ suit, in footage shared by DC Film News, which shows a towering, glossy brown figure with a sagging, half-melted face and jagged teeth. The KM Effects team created the costume as an on-set lighting reference for the CG “Sewer Creature” Matt Hagen transforms into at the end of the movie.

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The suit was made on a very tight schedule. Special effects artist Kristyan Mallett shared the images on Instagram, explaining that his team was brought on to create prosthetic blood effects, fake dummies, props and visual effects lighting models. His team had around 2 weeks to finish the creature costume after receiving a scan of performer Spencer Wilding.

That deadline required some shortcuts. The sculptors made each section separately before fitting the pieces to Wilding, but they couldn’t create cavities inside the suit during molding because of time constraints. Instead, they removed excess foam from the interior by hand so the performer could move around in it.

The suit’s job was to help the digital creature look real. It mainly served as a visual effects lighting model, helping the production work out the creature’s framing and shadows, so the VFX team could use the physical build as a reference when animating the character. Mallett described it as the lighting creature costume the team was asked to build for framing, shadows, and animation reference.

Visual effects supervisor Angus Bickerton explained the approach to Entertainment Weekly. The creature in the final sewer shot was rendered in CG, but the team built a full monster suit for a 6-foot-7 stand-in so they could test lighting and the creature’s presence on set. Legacy Effects’ practical transformation designs also informed the finished digital monster.

Fans have noticed the suit looks different from what ended up on screen. While Clayface’s final form was clearly influenced by the comics, the creature design kept some of Tom Rhys Harries’ features. These images reveal a much more faithful version of the villain’s monstrous look, though one half of the face still looks more human.

Watkins has explained how the team settled on the final design. In an interview with Variety, the director said, “I took everything as a reference and tried to choose, because there are so many versions in the comics. We did about 19 different iterations.” He added that the key was making sure the design captured the emotion of the man inside the monster.

The craft behind the creature has been one of the film’s biggest talking points. Even Matt Konopka’s more mixed Dread Central review called the effects “excellent, ooey-gooey craftsmanship,” noting the mix of practical makeup and CG enhancement. Harries has also drawn praise, with several critics pointing to his performance as the film’s emotional core.

‘Clayface’ follows Matt Hagen, whose acting career collapses after a crime boss disfigures him. An experimental treatment restores his looks, but its side effects push him toward a monstrous transformation and revenge. With Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini on the script, it’s one of the DCU’s most unusual projects so far, and the practical work behind it shows how much effort went into it.

Would you have preferred to see more practical effects in Clayface instead of a fully CGI monster?

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