Kulture Meltdown: Clayface (2026) — "They stole everything from me."

What do you want, Mr. Hagen? I want my life back. He stole everything from me. You okay?

I stole it. I have no idea what side effects she'll have or how to treat them. We're in unknown territory. All you've done is make me better. Clayface, October 23rd.

Hello everyone and welcome to Culture Meltdown, a crossover show between my show, The Culture Cast, and Brian Renfro's show, Movie Meltdown. I am Chris Stasche, one of your hosts, and I am joined, as always, by Brian Renfro. I am Vengeance. I am the Knight. Hey, I'm Brian.

And I'm a big puddle of man-meat. On this episode of Culture Meltdown, we're talking about 2026's body whore dcu third entry that this one's not supergirl we promise though if you want to hear my thoughts on that mike and i covered it on the show that is now change over a crossover show between his show and my show where we also talk about new movies uh we talked about that earlier this year spoilers wasn't good brian i heard you loved it yeah i was like one of the first things we talked about when you came onto the network was like yeah mike and i cover new movies like supergirl it's not good brian did you see supergirl No, I. Knew better than that. Okay, good for you. I was like, and I'm not even blaming her.

Because again, most of your dorky guys are just like, it becomes a girl thing. And I'm like, nah, she's fine. Like, for the minute and a half I saw her in the last movie, she's fine. But I will say, if anything kind of took me down in my anticipation of it, I was like, ugh, why is Aquaman in this movie? I'm just kind of sick of him in general.

I was like, Lobo, Aquaman, whatever. You're the same dude all the time. And nobody thinks you're cooler than you do, buddy. So just settle down. So yeah, that just kind of killed it a little bit for me.

I was just not looking forward to watching him think he was cool and ride a motorcycle or whatever the hell he did. I don't know. That's about it. But yeah, this movie is technically the third entry into the burgeoning DCU. I say burgeoning because...

Despite their best attempts, they're doing their best to try and sink it before it becomes an actual thing. So, yeah, we're going to be talking about 2026's Clayface. It is a film directed by James Watkins. Boy, the film is about Matt Hagen, a rising Gotham actor who sleeps with the girlfriend of a crime boss, Marcos Zabo. Zabo's men cut up his face, and his career collapses.

Dr. Caitlin Kaur's experimental treatment rebuilds his face, but it won't hold, and Hagen learns he can reshape himself into other people. Then he takes his revenge, dot, dot, dot. This is a rated R superhero question mark movie. It did come out October 23rd, 2026.

At a glance, the film is directed by James Watkins on a screenplay by, yeah, Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, though Mike Flanagan has said he hasn't seen this movie. He's probably not going to. One of the other producers is Matt Reeves, James Gunn. Yes, Matt Reeves, the director of Batman and The film, however, does star Tom Rhys-Harris. Yeah, Tom Rhys-Harris.

That is definitely not the name of an American actor, though he does a great American accent. He plays Matt Hagen, a.k.a. Clayface, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella, David Denik, Eddie Marzen. And yeah, that's right, folks. You saw Aaron Paul in this movie, even though people initially were like, that's not a thing.

He's not in this movie. No, turns out he is, in fact, in this movie. We will be spoiling this film if you can't tell. Brian, before we talk spoilers, worth going to the theaters and spending your hard-earned money on Clayface? Yes.

If you are prepared for something that is kind of different from what you've been getting from, I would say, just about all of your superhero-type movies in the last 20 years. It's a very different approach. And I know they've said many times on both sides of the DC and Marvel fence there that they're going to this one's different. This one's going to be a blah, blah, whatever. But like this time, it's pretty different.

I have to say it still sort of works as a superhero adjacent movie, but it's doing its own thing and is pretty entertaining in the process. Yeah, I would say if you're a fan of. Superhero movies go check this out but i also think this is not a movie for all fans of superhero movies because this is a very like you said it is very different but i don't think i don't think the people that went and saw supergirl are going to be lining up for this movie maybe i'm wrong and to be fair nobody lined up for supergirl apparently so no it seems like more people were going to see this than even the people that went to see supergirl i will say yes. Only based on the fact that, like. You said, it is not your typical thing.

If it were your typical thing, I would be less inclined. But I enjoyed it for the most part. I think there's things that we will obviously kind of delve into and get to. But I think overall, it's a pretty interesting movie. So from here on out, we're talking spoilers.

So first things first, spoilers out in the open. Brian, what did you think of Clayface? it was way more body horror than I expected. Like I knew that's what they were going for, but then getting in there, I'm like, Oh no, this, this is full on body horror. Like this is definitely, and it's interesting because I just got around to watching the substance recently, which is so much body horror. So like watching this, I was like, this is not far behind.

Like it's not quite that crazy and over the top, but it is definitely in the same ballpark as the substance. So, That was, I think, my thing that I wasn't quite prepared for. I knew that's what they were going to do. But yeah, they full on were just like, well, this is what we're doing. So let's lean into the body horror aspect.

And that's, I think, definitely what sort of is the takeaway from it more than anything. It is definitely kind of horror-esque, but it is, if anything, body horror more than anything. Would you laugh if I said it's not body horror enough? I mean, it depends on what you're looking for. I don't feel like it really is body horror enough, and I think that's because it's a superhero movie.

And I think that that's the thing that holds it back, right? I mean, I feel like it's the thing that holds it back. And I would probably have liked this movie more if it didn't have the superhero part, but then it would just. Be The Fly. Which is, yeah, it's a lot of that.

Or Videodrome, or any number of body horror movies. And I don't think it has enough of a hook on its own. Like I don't tie. Into what it would become. You just be like, wait, why am I watching this guy?

Well, and what it has become, because to be fair, creature commandos is technically set after this in terms of the chronology. And so it being set after this chronologically means that, you know, Clayface is already in that series. And so hold on one second, Brian, I just need a second. It doesn't have a hook on its own enough. Not really.

I'm going to say like it's baby's first... Baby's first body horror. It is baby's first body horror because I think the superhero of it all just cuts away a movie that I think is much more interesting, but then is a movie that has nothing to do with this. It's just a movie. It's just The Fly.

It's just Videodrome. It's just The Substance. It's any number of great body horror movies that are just body horror movies. They don't need anything else, but that's also because the people writing them I don't know. Like, I don't want to drag the.

Person who came in to take Flanagan's script because I think the script for the movie is fine. But Hossein Amini is not Mike Flanagan. No. And I wonder what this film would have been if it had been a Mike Flanagan thing all the way through from director to screenplay to casting and everything else. I don't think the casting is poor.

I think the casting in this movie is great. I think Tom Reese Harry's is great as a version of Clayface. You know, I've seen people saying, you know, it's not Clayface like this or it's not Basil Carlo. Like, who cares? Like, it's this is a film version of the character like that.

It is what it is. Like, take it with, you know, it's it's also it's like this weird nano cell. I don't. Yes. Science.

Science. Very wonky and dumb science. Like it's not intelligible science and it doesn't need to be. I'm not complaining about it not being intelligible. Like that's.

No, it works. It does its job. Like that's what it's there for is when you have dumb questions about the biology part of it, you throw in nanobot technology and then that there, that takes care of your questions because now none of this makes any sense, but it does whatever we say that it does. So shut up and watch this movie. Like that's how it works.

And I'm fine with that. I'm like, good. All right. You came up with an excuse. That's all I need.

Well, and again, it is a superhero movie. So I'm not needing it to be Zack Snyder levels like, well, these. Are metahumans and let me explain it away. And let's make sure everything makes sense. And let's make sure everybody understands that we're taking this seriously, because if we're not taking this seriously, then these movies can't be serious.

It's like, no, these movies can be serious and fun at the same time. I think my issue, to speak to the, I don't think this is body horror enough, most of the kills are not that exciting. Which, if that's what this movie is then going to kind of become... the kills at the end of the movie are interesting. And then there's like one other kill that's kind of fun, but it doesn't even take advantage of the body horror. It's just, it's like, it wants to be an R rated movie, but it doesn't want to commit to what that means.

Because again, it's a superhero thing. And I just, I don't like that. I just, that's not fair. Like that's not the, that's not what I was being sold. I guess like it, it, it, it ends up selling itself more as a, superhero movie less a body horror movie and i feel like that's a missed opportunity at this point in time.

See it's funny because i didn't really even think of it as a superhero movie it's definitely an origin story and it's an again as i said earlier it's superhero adjacent like it definitely is in gotham you feel the gotham of it you feel them like really trying to put together this the city that we haven't seen much of in this new dcu or at all So like it's kind of giving us a taste of where they're probably going to want to go in future movies that may or may not have some dude in a cow. But they're building up the overall world. But to me, it still didn't even feel like a superhero movie the way that we're used to them anymore. It's just like a side story that also kind of takes place in the same universe.

But it really doesn't even connect within this movie. It really doesn't connect to the other stuff at all. So it's just sort of, again, side story. superhero adjacent but really didn't even feel like a superhero movie to me. It didn't feel like a superhero movie i guess my concern with the way the movie was written is it feels like the punches that were pulled was because the expectation was the people who were going to see it were expecting a superhero. Movie even though they said it's not a superhero movie over and over again part.

Of the movie just doesn't feel like it was able to pull the trigger hard enough to on the body horror, because I think they thought maybe the audience would be a tad too squeamish, uh, which I, you know, the substance didn't have any of that together. Didn't have any of that to speak to the last two kind of big body horror movies that have come out in the last like couple years. Yeah, those are definitely not geared towards any crossover audience. No, they're like, who's that appealing to? Yeah, you've got to be a grown up to even want to go see either of those movies versus this definitely could appeal to a random 13 year old that sneaks into the theater.

But it's still the Friday night crowd, you don't think? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, I do. And again, I that's why I'm like, I'm kind of surprised it did as well as it did.

Like it had a good opening weekend. So I think it it did manage to pull in, I'm guessing, the fanboy crowd, because like everybody who is like definitely hardcore in the Batman world is like they usually are really into the villains anyway. So I think anybody who's even kind of curious about that aspect of it must have shown up because it had good numbers. But I think it was also enough of a horror movie within the trailer that it might have won over a few people that were like, I don't know, maybe we'll go see that this weekend. So like, I think it had a little crossover and that's why it ended up having a really good opening weekend, especially for a lesser known superhero movie, if we're calling it that.

And especially for DCU, which is very hit and miss, not even just currently. Overall, DC is very hit and miss. So, yeah, I think that's probably why is it pulled in the hardcore comic fans and then it pulled in a decent amount of crossover with the horror of it all. What is your read on the DCU as it stands right now? I think they don't even know what it is because even within the DC of it, we're still split.

Because the Batman is still its own separate thing. And it's still coming. We're still waiting for the second part because it keeps getting pushed back. But it's not at all attached to anything to do with any of these last three movies. And even this one kind of doesn't count officially.

Before we got going, I was looking over stuff and there's a quote from James Gunn that specifically kind of is... telling people enjoy this for what it is, but at the same time, giving him a pass to be like this, this exists in its own universe, essentially. So basically go enjoy this movie as its own thing. Don't try to worry about how it ties to other stuff. Just enjoy this movie for the horror movie that it is. But I feel like that's also leaving him that back door there to be like, if we want to, if it, if it does well and we want to make use of this Gotham, if we want to make use of this villain somewhere down the line, then we can, if this thing tanks, I can be like, Nope, separate universe.

We're good. So I think even built into the DCU of it all, they're already planning to do whatever they want, depending on how popular it is. So they've given themselves an out even within that, not to mention the fact they're already split within their own world, having a, a leftover in-between version that still doesn't fit. It's like, we already killed the old, old version that was like, woo, back two years ago. And now there's another one kind of in-between that hit at that same time that's been on hold for that long.

And then there's this new thing that's kind of a whole new start, except not really, but kind of. So DC is very confusing. It's a whole new thing other than Peacemaker only. Yeah, really? How does that factor in now?

I guess Peacemaker traveled through the multiverse in his show and ended up, I don't know. I don't know because I didn't watch it. And I watched the first season and I watched the first season because it was something that was very different from all the Zack Snyder serious nonsense. And that's the thing for me. It's like, you know, I know.

One of the most. Negative reviews I have on iTunes is because I didn't like Zack Snyder's Justice League. Like, I'm sorry I didn't like a movie that I didn't think was very good. What do you want me to do? Tell you what you want to hear just because that's what you want to hear.

Like, I've never understood people getting upset at someone else's opinion. I'm not trying to say it's fact. if you're trying to tell me that it's fact that it's a good movie, that's your opinion. That's not a fact. Like you can tell me objectively, there are parts of the movie that work or certain shots or this, that, and something else, but like part of like, Oh, well, this is a, my favorite movie and I love it. And it's so great.

Like, do you know how much of that is subjective? What you just said? Like, do you even care? And it's, it's really irritating for me because stuff like fanboy is like fanboy fanboying and fanboy isms and and i would say you know um you know the stan culture is just it's so exhausting because you know what like i don't like anything that much anymore because of this kind of like nonsense and like genuinely it's just nonsense. It's like really dumb behavior surrounding like things that are made for kids that adults are taking seriously because if they just acknowledge it's fun, that somehow diminishes what it is.

I'm sorry, but Batman and Superman, it's like all very silly. And when they elevate it and make it serious, great. And when it works, awesome. But it's a guy running around in a bat costume. It just, it's inherently goofy.

Like it's, And I don't know, like they have such a hard time with that. You know, it's the idea of like, you know, what's the, apparently the worst thing you can do is call Donald Trump gay or make jokes about him loving other men's asses because all of a sudden they all start freaking out. It's like the worst thing you could do is call someone like that gay because the first thing that they're going to do is be like, no, no, it's the worst thing. And it's like, that's the same thing here. It's like the worst thing you could do for a DCU movie or a DCEU movie, the.

Stuff that came before this was, say it was bad or say Zack Snyder didn't know what he was doing. And it's like, well, you've invalidated your opinion immediately. It's like, Oh my, whatever. Fine. It's, there's a level of immaturity surrounding it.

That's hard for me to deal with anymore. And I, you know, I dealt with it because, you know, we had to watch that fucking Zack Snyder justice league movie. And I watched it. I sat and watched the whole three hour thing. Like I just, I, like, what do you want?

Like, if it's not for me, it's not for me. Like, I just, I don't, I don't know what you want. And that's my whole issue with a lot of these things. Like, I don't know what people want from me as someone who watches film. I'm not going to lie to you because you want me to say, I liked this movie.

So I've been called a contrarian in the past about things. And it's like, I'm not a contrarian. Like I'm not a contrarian. What I am is honest about my feelings on movies. And if you want to like something cool, like, you know, I, I feel so much like the DCEU, so much of the groundswell and like argument and conversation about it was about something that was completely unimportant, which was Zack Snyder's involvement.

Those movies weren't good. Zack Snyder's involvement doesn't matter. Like some of those movies weren't even directed by him. Like David F Sandberg directed some of those movies. Like some of those movies were not like direct, you know, some of those movies directed by James Wan for fuck's sake.

Like not everything was a Zack Snyder thing. Sure. They had similar tones, but I appreciate that this movie doesn't feel like Supergirl. I appreciate that this movie doesn't feel like Superman. However, that does not excuse it for not doing more with a, and like you said, a big budget DC horror movie.

Like that's not a thing. Yeah. I mean, they haven't done anything like this really. They barely would go into other areas. Like at least we got a little of that in the Marvel movie.

Werewolf at night is a fucking black and white thing on you know on hulu or whatever like it's not even a movie they it's you know ghettoized and thrown on dumped on streaming at least this movie came out in. Theaters and i'm i mean i i definitely have gone on record on many many occasions if you if you want to hear people talk smack about zack snyder yeah you can go back i've got two different episodes of the rebel moon that i just i have a lot of problems with them And that's just not, that's him as a filmmaker. Like, and it's not, I'm not just trying to trash him for the sake of trashing him. Like I legitimately have issues with some of the stuff that he does along the way. And I have no problem bringing them up as I get into it.

But again, much like you, I don't try to just bad mouth things for the sake of it. Like kind of the opposite. I want to go in liking these things. Like I want to enjoy myself watching movies and Try to as much as I can. But I also try specifically once I get here, once I get in the realm where we sit around and talk about things for hours on end anyway, it's like, why wouldn't you just address the things that you want to talk about?

So I then will bring up kind of both sides of it. And within the episodes, a lot of times I will even. Throw the other side out there. If I don't feel that way that much, I'll still be like, well, what about this side of the argument? You know, it's like you can play devil's advocate just to have something fun to talk about.

Like, I feel like that's the point of these. People just don't want to even listen to a different opinion than theirs is part of the problem, I feel like. Whereas I enjoy hearing other people's take on it, even if I disagree with it. As long as everybody's cool and civil about it, like, it's okay to have differing opinions. That's fine.

Like what you want. If you want to like those Zack Snyder movies, be my guest. That is literally your prerogative. My lacking of liking it should not affect your ability to like it at all. Period.

And you know what? They're not for me. I don't need to understand why Superman blew up a building or didn't or whatever. I just. Grimdark and serious and unfun.

If that's your thing, cool. If that's your thing, cool. I. whatever. You probably don't like the things that I like anyways. So what does it matter?

Like we, our paths don't really cross in terms of our, our film likes and dislikes. That's, you know, that tends to kind of always be the case with stuff like this. Like this is so distinctly and uniquely its own thing that I kind of am just fine with it being a thing. I'm not, I don't vibe with people on, you know, I don't vibe with it. You don't vibe with me. whatever, like, you know, they're probably, they probably gave up on DC other than being absolutely convinced that Zack Snyder's coming back, which is a thing.

I mean, genuinely, there's still corners of the internet, large corners of Twitter that still believe Zack Snyder's going to get rehired by whoever's in charge now. David, I mean, David Ellison, depending on how things go, he could, like we've seen them make that kind of desperate move. So like if James Gunn stuff tanked right out. Of the gate, which arguably one of them did, like it wasn't a year or two to be fair it wasn't james gunn's thing to be fair well no i was saying him taking over the whole i know which is why that's fair that's the bigger issue yeah that's the bigger picture so if like his first two out of the gate both tanks they'd be like whoa hey we gotta get tech back you know that would have definitely been one of it would have been on the table is he a big enough is is what the success that he did enough really I mean, I feel like he brought just as much complaint with him as he did success.

So like it was never an out and out success because from day one, people were just like, wait, what is he doing? So I feel like he had just as many excuses for people that didn't enjoy what he was doing. So I don't know. Like, again, like it if you want to like it. I don't care.

But I just thought it was such a weird direction to take Superman. Like I didn't have a problem with the Batman version of him being dark and moody because that is Batman. Like it's weird if you try to, unless you're doing Adam West, like it's weird to take Batman anywhere else. So like that worked again, not great, but like that end of it felt okay-ish in the Zack Snyder versions. It wasn't that far off from what we would normally expect from anybody dealing with Batman, but Yeah, the Superman of it was just always so wrong.

Like, it just felt off in a way that didn't make sense to me. But I'm not saying it's not open to other interpretations. I'm fine with that. I just didn't, you know, gel with that one myself. But, like, I'm fine with somebody else taking on Superman and trying to do something interesting with it.

It's just that one went a weird direction that I just didn't click with. I don't think Zack Snyder understands how to have fun as a director. Right. I just don't. I don't get it.

I don't get what his appeal is. I don't understand what the people who watch him and defend him are defending other than just grim, dark and serious and like. Edgy, like bro films. It's very bro. That's the thing.

It's very bro. And I'm like, does this have a place in any of this? No, it really doesn't. I will say as much as I did not I had so many problems with both of the Rebel Moon. And again, it's all just clunky storytelling.

It's all just almost from the writing. He has a visual aspect. I think it's equally as much computer as it is filmmaking now. But whatever, that's a lot of filmmakers. So I don't throw that out as a problem, essentially.

It's so much of the filmmaking, writing, storytelling part of it that I have issues with. But I will say when he does something dumb and it's supposed to be dumb and you're allowed to enjoy it and have fun, I'm okay with it because I've watched that Army of the Dead at least twice now. And I still have problems with it, but it is way more fun. And I will probably revisit it at some point again in the future because it is a dumb movie. But I feel like it's almost aware of how dumb it is.

And it lets you just sort of sit back and turn your brain off and enjoy this movie for an hour and a half or whatever it is. Again, I don't hate him across the board. I've watched that one several times now. It's got his moments that are very entertaining. When I think of Zack Snyder, I just think of people that are trying to legitimize his movies.

I'm like, can't they just be fun? Why can't we just, it's just a fucking stupid movie. Like, why does it have to be something like, oh, this is a serious thing. Look at this. Look at the internal struggle of Superman and his dad.

Like, who gives a shit? And you know what? No offense, Zack Snyder, but you're not the person I'm going to to have like a deep emotional conversation. Like, you're not, you're not the guy. Like, don't get anything twisted.

Like, even if you think you're the guy, you're not the guy. I promise you're not the guy. Like you're not that guy and you'll never be that guy because the other people do that better. Like you're a director and you, like you said, Brian, you have an eye for the visuals. He does.

What's wrong with that? Like, what's wrong with that? Like, why, why can't that be enough? Like you don't need to keep embarrassing yourself with your photography or something. And like, just let somebody else definitely be the screenwriter, but maybe even be the director.

And like, you just focus on making cool visuals and setting stuff up and doing the lighting or computer versions of the lighting or whatever you do. Success is diminished because I'm not the one in control of everything. And yeah, that's the, I think that's the problem. He wants it to be Zack Snyder's vision. And like, even when he's doing stuff that's super unoriginal, again, I'm back to just talking smack about it.

Broadly everything. But I was just like, but I mean, those Rebel Moon are just so much Star Wars ripoffs. And like, he knows it too. Like he pitched it as a Star Wars movie, but then like it didn't happen. So he did it.

Fine. I'm taking my toys over to Netflix and we're going to make our own movie. Now I'm just saying everything I said on that episode. But again, he can do that stuff. And there are moments of it that are well done.

But there's just so much of it that's just him just trying to be other things that he does not as impressive as the originals that he's stealing from. So, again, a lot of directors do that. I get it. But it just doesn't make him a visionary director that I think he feels like he is or wants to be seen as. I never got the sense that Michael Bay thought he was a visionary.

I think that. That's my problem with Zack Snyder is he somewhere along the lines got the sense that he was somehow better at doing what he did than anybody else was. And he is not better at using slow-mo than the Wachowskis. And he's definitely not better than, I would say, the entire Southeast Asian subcontinent of India when it comes to making film using slow-mo. Zack Snyder should watch one Indian film.

And he'd understand how to use slow-mo much more appropriately than he's ever used it in any of his films. And I would, you know, for as much issue as I had with Michael Bay, he is a much more competent filmmaker than Zack Snyder is. And Michael Bay, I think, understands his place in the world. Zack Snyder, because of the incessant fanboyism of those bozos, Zack Snyder, Snyderverse, like release the Snyder Cut people. They're the ones I ultimately have the problem with.

Like, they're the ones, they're the vocal demons. dipshits on the internet who took it upon themselves to get a movie released that was not finished. 30 million dollars to be paid to finish something does not mean it's finished does not mean anything like that means it was an unfinished film that cost the price of like five other films to finish so you bullied a studio into giving someone who's a complete clown money to finish a movie that nobody asked for Does it make you feel good? They didn't do anything with it. And it actually further nailed coffins, nailed nails into the coffin of DC. So good.

Good. Thank you. Thank you for, frankly, doing what none of us else could, which is make them... I do feel like he got caught up in all of that. Well, it goes to your head.

You know people like this. People like this are fucking let it go to their head. And if we're throwing Michael Bay in there, who, again, I have a lot of issues with what he does as a filmmaker, but I feel like he also doesn't care. He could care less. He's like, I'm going to make my movie the way I want to make it, and who cares?

Exactly. Where I feel like Zach gets all caught up in the fanboyism about him. Whereas Michael Bay is like, whatever. It's that validation. It's those people validating him.

And it's like, you know, it's the same thing with Chris Nolan. Like he wants to be validated by real film goers who will go to his movies and IMAX and only in film. Like, wow. I guarantee you. Eventually he got his.

I hate to tell you. I mean, he got his, but you know what? If those are the people that are your fans, trust me, you can fucking have them. They watch movies that are very much barely elevated, and boy, they feel like they're the smartest people in the room because a movie made them watch a story that's been around since thousands of years before any of. Us were fucking born.

Like it's very much like Chris Nolan and Zack Snyder on this. Like I'm self-important, my fans, not the fans, but my fans have made me out to be something better than everybody else. And, and not only that, like I bought into it and I be careful buying into your own brand of bullshit because at some point I There is not going to be anybody left new to fucking buy in and everybody else is just going to start dying off. And that's how you get all of these niche communities that exist. And maybe his community will start out a little bit bigger, but by the end of it, it'll.

Be just as small. It'll be zero, just like all these other communities where the people eventually are all gone. Because you know what? Zack Snyder is not someone who I think people are going to care about 20, 30 years from now. We're living in it, but we're only seeing this the way we're seeing it now.

We're not seeing it 20 years from now where I think the world has changed their opinion on Zack Snyder broadly. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not trying to be a dick. I just don't put that much effort into worrying about him anymore. Well, that's the thing.

There was a time where it really dominated conversations. on like the internet and it's like so irritating that now he's like a non-issue and like he should have just been a non-issue the moment they took the DC away EU away from him the moment they took Justice League away from him that he should have been a non-issue because he's been a non-issue since they took the Justice League away from him that's the fucking craziest part is he's been a non-issue since like 2018 And yeah, sure, the blip of the Snyder Cut getting released exists out there. But guess what? It got released and did nothing. It didn't prove anybody anything. It didn't make anybody anything.

It definitely didn't make HBO any fucking money. All it did was lose them money. That's the thing. This movie at least made them money. You know, not a lot of money, but it did make them money.

We can say that much at least. And compared to what it was made for. This is a minimal budget compared to any of those other superhero movies. Yeah. I think the minimal budget of this movie factors into the fact that it didn't have enough money behind it to really have a practical effect kind of extravaganza or CGI effect extravaganza that this film genuinely needs.

This film needs that because it... What are we doing here? I want so badly... a film that does this kind of story right and this film gets i think like two-thirds of the way there but you can definitely tell again to go back to the writing of this you can tell that this film is written by two different people. Right it's not it's not. Just me right it definitely feels like it was written by two different people there are parts of this movie that are drastically different from one another And parts of this movie that feel like tacked on, you know, to say that this is a superhero movie, the Gotham of it all feels like lip service.

They're just like, oh, it takes place in Gotham. Like, okay. I think my issue is more of, and this, I was going to ask you what your thoughts on this was in general, but also it probably applies to a lot of these because we have, in the last several years, had a lot of these offshoot, villain movies and we we get these people that are like they keep making them. How many have there been now what is there a madam webb morbius craven i mean. Even it's something as big as joker really i mean we've had all of these so my question is with all of them but even with this one which i actually liked but is it necessary Uh, is it necessary?

Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No, but it's sterile and I like the taste. Uh, I would say broadly, none. Of these films have been necessary. You know, that's, that's the funny part.

Like I, I, I ask about the, uh, those fucking Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man movies were those necessary. Like it's not for me, but no. And then, and then, and I would say the same thing about this movie. Like the, the, This movie exists for what reason? Was it to make money?

Was it to tell us, tell, tell a kind of, you know, not every brushstroke painted on a canvas is going to be a broad one. Sometimes it's going to be fine in the corner and you're working on the small details. That's the way I view this movie. It helps round out the picture of the world that is the DCU that they're building. And, you know, the Lanterns TV show, I think, is probably more in common with this than anything else does that's come out so far.

Maybe Creature Commandos, but that's like a cartoon. So it's weird in and of itself. Like the the Lantern TV show is probably the closest because it's like a true detective adjacent show. This tone of this movie is so bizarre because again like it it knows it it's almost like it knows it's a super it's in a superhero universe because you know at some point we should have just had him look at the screen and be like man it's gonna be a real pain in the ass if i have to fight somebody with these powers huh because you can see him realizing in real time that he has this ability all of a sudden that he can heal like wolverine He can transform into other people visually like Mystique. You know, it's like there are things in this movie that I've seen in other things that I'm like, oh, they're setting this up for something else.

Like it's not just this movie. And there's parts, again, of this movie that are very clearly like I know that they said like, well, it's a superhero movie of a different kind, but not really. Like we haven't really seen Gotham yet in the DCU. So this is it for like, I mean, like we've seen Batman, the Batman as in the Robert Pattinson Batman, but that's not part of this. Like this is the first we're seeing of Gotham in DCU.

And if this is where they're going with it, I think that's a shame because they don't capitalize on it here at all. Almost like this wasn't really a superhero movie. Like, Again, I come back to it. That was my takeaway. Right, exactly.

I don't feel like it is. No, it's not. And I want to talk with you about this before we kind of continue talking about the movie proper. The Mike Flanagan of it all. I wish this had just been a Mike Flanagan thing from the start.

It's really a shame that Mike Flanagan is one of those people that spread himself way too thin. Because he does have a ton of stuff in the works and has already knocked out so much in the last several years. And this fell off the wagon. I mean, literally, this fell off the wagon because it was this and Carrie and what's... And.

There's one other thing. I mean, it's the Exorcist movie. It's those three things that literally prevent this movie from having been a Mike Flanagan thing. And I think that they should have waited. They genuinely should have waited for this to just be a Mike Flanagan thing and have him be involved in a way that is substantive because the parts of this movie that work feel like they're Mike Flanagan adjacent.

The parts of this movie that don't work feel like they're The other writer. And again, I don't want to keep dragging this other writer, but I know what Mike Flanagan's level of quality is. And Hossein Amini is just not bringing that same level of quality at all. When I wonder if it was just if how much of that was studio versus Mike Flanagan and how much was just them. Or him just being like, well, I'm just tired of waiting because looking back at the history on this, this started years ago.

2021. And was going to be part of the Batman world originally and like got bounced around and pushed back. Would it have been DCEU at the time? I mean, maybe coming out of that, maybe they knew that was already coming to an end. Maybe this was always supposed to be like a standalone thing, right?

Like probably, but I heard they were setting it up for this to be a villain that showed up in the second, the Batman movie, which we still haven't gotten yet, but, and we may never get now because Matt, matt reeves has stepped away now at this point in time so that was originally a part of the plan in the very early gray area of them trying to figure out what to do with this so i mean you you can tell right there that like it it's something that i guess they were sick of waiting like we got to get this out at some point so when are we going to do it even to the point of okay fine we'll just get a different director and like we'll let somebody else finish the writing and like so Maybe it was that.

Maybe it was just like, we've got to keep this new DCU going, even if it means handing this off to somebody else, which again, would it have been better? We don't really know, but it seems like it might have had a better shot if it were one single vision kind of thing from writing and even more so if you got the director involved, too. If it were anybody other than Mike Flanagan, the lack of his involvement would not have been the lack of their involvement would not have been so problematic, but because it's Mike Flanagan who I don't love everything he's done, but I love a lot of the things that he's done because he's very good at what he does. Like I, I'm not a Scarlett Johansson fan, but I feel like that exorcist movie is going.

To be at least interesting. Looks interesting. It's going to have more going on than the David Gordon green movie. Which, David Gordon Green's movie is not terrible, but it's also never getting a follow-up because it didn't succeed the way they wanted it to financially. And ultimately, when you pay $ 300 million for the franchise rights to something, you have to make the money back.

Yeah. Mike Flanagan's involvement in this movie was to try and make money with one of these movies. Because like you said, for the most part, these movies are kind of getting laughed out of the theaters. Morbius was a joke. Madam Web was a joke.

Craven. I don't even know if any people realize that that movie came out. Like, don't even know if they remember it. And that movie was directed by the guy who wrote and directed Margin Call, of all people. Which is...

That's who you go for. Fucking yeah, right? You're looking for a solid superhero movie. I just talked about Margin Call a couple weeks ago, and the episode's not out yet, but when we were doing the episode, Dr. Perlmutter was like, did you realize that the guy who wrote and directed this directed Kraven?

And I was like, yeah, and it makes no sense to me. And again, that Kraven movie doesn't even make sense to me at all. That movie makes no sense why it exists. And... Madame Webb, same thing.

Morbius, same thing. All of them exist to try and make money to cash in on the character of Spider-Man and his cadre of villains. This is like, we're trying to cash in on the Batman characters because there's a ton of them. They saw how Joker worked, and they said, we'll do that thing too. And look, I think this is much more successful than any of those Marvel movies.

Yeah, definitely. Has there been one that's been successful? Because normally these are all being copied. It feels like the one that was being copied. is Joker, which was a DC movie. Joker was the only one that was really successful.

Yeah, even the second Joker movie wasn't that successful. I'd like to point out. I mean, no, that one did not. Second Joker movie is fun. I liked the second Joker movie.

I haven't watched it yet because I didn't like the first one, but like everybody else liked the first one. So from what I've heard, the people that didn't like the first one actually enjoy the second. Correct. Which makes me kind of want to watch it. So I just haven't gotten around to it yet, but I know it's a very different mood.

It's a very different movie. It's very much a, like, it's a condemnation of the people who liked the first movie. And we're, like, idolizing the character. Of the first movie. Yeah, which is kind of funny, actually.

Yeah, I found it very entertaining and amusing. And I think Todd Phillips, you know, he's not my favorite director, but he definitely was as, I think, as irked by the reaction to his first movie as I was, which is like, look at how. Much this is so great. It's like, fuck, no, it's not. It's really not.

I, you know, to go in that timeline of Joker comes out and then those Marvel, those Sony Spider-Man movies start coming out, which I think it's very funny, like Spider-Man and Batman, both they're the biggest versions. Of themselves and their respective Marvel and DC. Spider-Man's characters are that same, like the villains of Spider-Man are the best villains, like Green Goblin and, you know, Sandman and Batman, same. Like Batman has the best villains in DC, Spider-Man has the best villains in Marvel. And yet they fucked it up because they made it about the villains that nobody cares about.

Morbius, Madam Web, and Kraven. And again, what's funny, I guess we're forgetting about Venom. Venom is the one that kind of superseded it, but I think it's the Spider-Man stank on Venom that allowed Venom to kind of exist in its own world. Because people are going to sit here and roast us for forgetting Venom. Those Venom movies are fine.

They did make a lot of money. I mean, that is what powered all of this. That's what powered those Marvel movies. That's what powered these DC movies is. They made a lot of money.

Like you said, this movie was in existence before James Gunn took over. James Gunn's like, ah, but I feel like Venom existed. He could have canceled this movie, right? Like James Gunn could have just been like, this is out the door because I'm in now. Something I want to talk with you about, and this is something that I kind of had forgotten about because the movie I think is not great.

The Josh Trank Fantastic Four movie is the last time someone tried to do this. And I think it works better here, this being the body horror. I think it works better here, the body horror does. Because in that movie, it's like, well, it's the heroes and the powers. The powers are supposed to be, when you're a hero, the powers are supposed to be something you as a person would want.

I did not want any of the powers in that movie the way they presented them. You don't want to burst into flames at any given moment? I mean, not the way that that movie had it. You don't want to be a big orange rock thing? Not the way that, that's a problem.

Like that movie, I just, I don't know. I'm, I don't want to drag that movie because I think that movie has historically been drugged plenty. It's kind of forgotten at this point. I know, but it's the last time a superhero movie or something superhero adjacent did body horror. And this is better, but I do think that this, once again, makes the case as to why body horror.

Is just not.... Body horror is never going to really work with superhero movie stuff because you're not going to do it enough. This movie just doesn't do it enough. And I want so much more body horror that this just makes me want to go watch other body horror movies that are better. To me, I feel like body horror is, is its own like sub genre more or less, but it also like only works when given to the right people.

Like you can't just throw it in every once in a while. Wander into a body horror movie. Like I never thought of this. Like, yeah, it's like, and then, you know, either it's just confusing or you're just grossing out people that showed up for something else. Or like, I feel like it, if you give it to the right people and usually it's top tier that this is what they do. it works and they have something to say in the process.

And it's, there's a reason for it to be there, not just for gross out effect versus sometimes, you know, when you get people just messing around and like, Oh, we're going to throw this in there too. It's like, it's not a good idea where at least this, like it, it kind of comes with the territory. Like it's hard to have this character without at least part of it being body or now again, whether or not it's successful is a different question, but yeah, I don't know. I feel like, I feel like it's not even that that's a little off. Like, cause by the end I liked it, but I still felt like it was missing something.

And I think part of it was more of just the, the bigger story of like, what are we really here for? Like I liked the character and I like what we're doing and I liked setting it up, but at the same time we're devoting so much time. And this is what I was saying with the, is it necessary question earlier? I'm like, Is, is what we get here in like an hour and 48 minutes or whatever it is, is any of this. any better or more impressive than if you just work it in in like 15 minute intro in the beginning of a batman movie somewhere down the line well you've done that with many other villains over the years and like they didn't get their whole separate movie to set them up we just came in we give them 15 20 minutes along the way in the intro and then from that point on they are who they are we finish the story so it's like sometimes they do that really well in the right movie and like some like is this is this all we needed in a future batman movie was another 15 20 minute intro setting up his powers giving him a little backstory and then rolling with it versus this entire movie to tell the exact same story.

You're asking a question as to whether or not they should have treated clay face like they did sandman In Spider-Man 3. Pretty much. Because, I mean, that's... Or, you know, because that's... Even, like, huge characters.

Like, you look at... You know, I was impressed how well they worked in Black Panther and Before they had a Black Panther movie. I agree. For all the things going on in Civil War, whether you like it or not, like the most impressive part probably because Spider-Man they just barely touch on. He has a minimal amount.

But the Black Panther of it all is a full-fledged introduction of a major character done just kind of in the intro of the movie and then he becomes a character in the rest of the movie. And it's done... pretty impressively so that's the one i always go to of like they didn't give him a movie first they didn't let him build up a whole movie they threw him in as a side character on a movie that already had 14 other main stars so it's like the fact that that worked is amazing so you take something like this i'm like you're telling me you couldn't do that with this character which is not near as impactful as black panther i don't know that's my issue Well. And I guess the other question I have is, is this more of a thing that we need to be doing in a movie or should we have just done this as a show and have it be other?

I mean, again, they've already done a Penguin TV show. Why couldn't they just done that? And then you would have had again, it would have had probably more effects. It might have actually allowed for us to understand the character of Matt Hagen and his transformation, because that's the that's the problem I have with this movie. At the beginning of the movie, he's just seemingly a normal guy.

And then by the end of it, it's like, I know, obviously, by the end of it, he's this giant kind of human pool of. Stem cells, I guess. Question mark science. But he doesn't, his insanity is not very, the turn is not very well done. At all.

It's like Daenerys in Game of Thrones. He's very much a sympathetic and empathetic character to the point of like a dark man. And then at the end of it, it's like, well, no, he's got to be a villain for this to work. And it's like, but. what does he like in this universe? Does he have to be a villain in this version of Clayface?

Does he have to be, maybe he could be an antihero. Why does it have to be, why does it have to check a box that nobody went into this, like expecting to check? Like if someone says, well, why is it not Basil Carlo instead of Matt Hagan? Like, why are you asking a fucking dumb question that you know the answer to already? Because not enough people know who that is to begin with.

And not the people who are going to see this movie. On a Friday night. A lot of them don't fucking care. Sorry to tell you, but they just don't. They're going to see Clayface.

They don't give a shit if it's whoever, whatever, doing whatever the fuck. This is going to be the version of Clayface they know now if they go see this movie. And this is a way more interesting character. It is a good story. And that's what I'll say.

They did a good job as far as making him sympathetic in the first third. He gets screwed. He just. Literally just set up in the worst possible way. And by the time you get to like everything falling apart and his face is carved up, you know, it's like one or the other would suck.

But like the fact that he looks like he does, he's lost his career. He's got like legal problems as they're lying and like blaming him for everything. Like everything just falls into place from the other side. Everything is against him at that point. So at that point, you're just like, man, at this point, whatever he does, I understand.

You know, it's like if he goes crazy and kills people, I get it because like he was screwed over. And like the more you get into it, the more you're like, oh, no, everybody kind of screwed this guy over. So like I understand it, which does kind of lead to that question of like, well, now, I mean, I'm sympathizing with him a lot. So at what point are we? I guess by the end he is just flat out murdering people right and left.

So like, I guess now he has to be a villain, but I was just like, but these people also are horrible people. So if he just didn't murder them, cause I was like, then you're like, it's a shade away from Batman because Batman deals with all these horrible people, but he doesn't murder them. He just beats the hell out of them first and stop short of killing them. And that makes him a hero. So it's like, I don't know.

Like these are the same horrible underground underbelly of Gotham characters that he's dealing with by the end of it. So it's like, if he just stopped short of murdering them, he'd still be a hero. He'd be a vigilante hero like Batman. Well, is Punisher a hero? Like, and that's what I don't understand.

Like it's, he does murder people. So I don't know. It's, it's because of the murder of one character in this movie that he is painted as the villain. And it's the murder of the, that I guess are, are because the film needed a female romance. And I guess it works here in terms of like her being the kind of woman that he's yearning for Naomi Ackie playing doctor, who is the one that kind of helps him with his skin issue with his face being so kind of mutilated and, He kills her partner, played by Max Minghella, who, okay, that's the one murder.

That's the too far at that point. That's the too far, but at the same time, it's like, I. Need more than that. You need to do more than that. Even Joker did more than that.

He's hard to root for in Joker. It just seems so random at that point. Like it was such a hard turn all of a sudden. It's like, yeah, it was leading up to something, but he didn't seem like he was losing enough to do with that. It's just like, well, I guess now he's a bad guy.

Because I did, I will say I did like her and I did like their relationship. I did kind of buy like at first she was just helping him, but you do see it builds a decent relationship with how much time they're spending together. So you start to see, especially somebody as vulnerable and in bad shape as he is like he would be attaching himself to anyone but specifically you know we get just enough of her that i'm like all right no i like her as a character so like i can see him becoming interested in her and like so i i buy into that that relationship as it begins again i just feel like we never really got a chance for it to do anything else because it takes that hard turn all of a sudden and now it's like well now she can't be interested in you anymore you just murdered her fiance.

It's like, I don't know. It's a weird turn for that to take. They wanted that twist ending. That's what it is. They wanted the twist and that's fine.

It didn't need it. Like, why did he not just need, why could he not just be a sympathetic anti-hero? Like if you're going to do your own thing. Just do your own thing. Just continue to do your own thing.

He doesn't have to be this kind of giant hulking villain. You spent this entire movie doing all this, and this is where you want to end up anyways? That's the part that I genuinely don't understand. You spend an hour and a half movie with this character, and by the end of it, it's like, well, he's a villain now. I'm not saying we can't spend an hour and a half with a villain, but to your question before, what is the point then?

Yeah. That is a story better suited for television. If you want to tell a story that has a, a rise and a fall, like a pronounced rise in a pronounced fall. Like I think about star Wars and how much better they would have done with those prequel movies. If it had been a TV show where Anakin actually, like we see him turn to the dark side.

Oh wait, that's clone Wars. I mean like they actually, when given time, they can actually show you the depths and kind of, complexities and nuance of the characters. And this movie doesn't want to do any of that. It just wants to rush to the end, even though there is a character in this film who is a villain more so than Matt Hagen is at any point. Like, and that's the character played by David Denik, who I think the last time I saw him was in no time to die, which is fine, but he's, he's fine here, but his character is such a villain.

He's painted so villainously. He's a full-on gangster, and he knows it, and he doesn't care. Right. Why does Matt Hagen have to be a villain here? It doesn't even.

It's like the film is at odds with itself. We know he's willing to do morally reprehensible stuff, but it is to people that are deserving of it. When I was watching it... my girlfriend's son was like, oh, it's like Dexter. And it's like, it is like Dexter, but Dexter's better written. Like Dexter's a better thing because Dexter understands that we still have to find him as a somewhat relatable character like because again like if you're not doing that for that reason why are you doing this at all like i just don't understand like even morbius is an anti-hero like he doesn't you know crave insane like they're not ending the films like these like oh i'm a villain now can't you see me fighting spider-man like i can't see clayface fighting batman whatever version of batman we're getting i can't see him fighting him and that is probably why james gunn is saying what he's saying because it's like i want impunity to introduce batman the way that i want And I don't want the tone of Batman to be At all influenced by the tone of Clayface.

Because this movie is very light in terms of the horror. Even for horror movies. That are coming out that are mainstream horror movies, this movie is like two scenes, three scenes, and they show two of them in the trailer. Genuinely. They cut away in the trailer, but you do see one of the big gross-out moments.

Of the movie. And there's only a handful. It's not even a horror movie. It is.... It is a comic book movie with some horror beats, but the character of Clayface doesn't.

Even have to be body horror. He could have been something else entirely and they still could have gotten away with it. This version is body horror. I mean, they could have done Killer Croc as well. body horror for fuck's sake like yeah that's the one i was thinking of that's that's close to this because i was thinking of all these other villains that they have to work with and like killer croc is maybe the closest to this man bat same thing yeah if we ever get the man bat but right. Which is like fucking way the fuck down there on the list yeah or not again, I would love to see it, but that's, to me, that's a lot more like you really have to.

Figure out how to approach that. Whereas some of the others, you know, even like killer croc, we can piece together. It's similar story to many other things out there, both in comics and just mythologically. It's just, it's a werewolf story, except he's a croc, you know, it's like, it's barely any different or it's just like the lizard done on the other side of the fence there. So it's like, it's, it's, different versions of the same thing but i think that's as far as the it ending as as he is a villain now i think that's part of the problem too is watching it i'm like i think they had that end and had to work backwards they were like we know we want to make a clip you know we want to go with this guy so he's going to start off at the beginning and he'll be do you think that's where flanagan took it do you think that's where he would have taken it because that's where i feel like this is a.

It's like, that's where like, it's like the George RR Martin of it all. Like that's where Flanagan's notes ran out. That's where the script was like, well, we don't, we don't like, we did this needs to like sort of tie in. So he's gotta be a villain now. Like we can't, can't have two vigilantes running around in Gotham, right?

Like, Okay. That's why we've got to make him just randomly kill some people and then he's a bad guy all of a sudden. But none of the people he kills are bad people until Max Minghella. And like, you know, I'm not defending him. I mean, you want him to kill all the rest of them.

I mean, even his friend totally sold him out and stabbed him in the back and you're just like, well, I don't know if you needed to murder him, but at the same time, he screwed you over. Like, he is kind of a villain in and of him. You know, he's the reason that all of this happened to you. So it's like, you at least get a pass as to him being mad at him and going to take out some sort of revenge. Whether or not it needed to be full on murder is a different story.

But there's no good characters otherwise, other than the doctor. It's like nobody else is a good character, I guess, except the cop who gets taken out. So it's like, everybody else is just kind of a horrible human being. And like, you don't mind that he murders them. I think it's maybe defensible that he kills the cop.

If you look at it from a, he's the cops after him and trying to catch him. And that's it. I mean, he just barely like we had that scene before. It just seems so abrupt because it's like he just got to that point of like, oh, I think maybe he's part of this and he's maybe killing me. And he showed up at his place and started asking those questions.

And then like if it would have been like a half hour later when he seemed like he was right on, you know, catching up to him, figuring out the mystery, then he killed him like. in a desperate move, but like it's off screen and like a scene later, you know, just like, well, that was out of nowhere. You know, it seemed like if we built more to that, it would have felt right possibly. But like, it just seems so abrupt all of a sudden he's, he's dead now. Oh, well, you're a bad guy. Okay.

Whatever. Like that was a weird choice. It's just lazy. I think it's lazy. It's a different kind of movie.

It is a movie that is not as well written as the first two thirds. And I think it does come from a genuine lack of understanding of what we need from DCU in terms of how it treats the characters. I don't care at this point what they do with any of this because it's been shown that if you want to like Cue close to what it is that you're inspired by. It's going to be very different from what the rest of us have seen. Like, you know, we're all coming at Batman and Superman from a different direction.

Like genuinely, we all are like, we all want and have needs. For different things. So, you know, Tim Burton doing his thing or Chris Nolan doing his thing or who, you know, Zack Snyder or Joss Whedon doing his thing. Like they're all perfectly valid interpretations of Batman because those are their own versions. I don't see how Batman works with this character.

As it is. And I don't see. How DCU moves forward with this character in there, which is why, like I said, James Gunn is just so. This isn't part of anything. Like, yeah, because this is also, like you said, kind of a hanger-on of the olden times.

This would have been perfectly in place in a Zack Snyder universe. Genuinely. Like.... You put this in with those Ben Affleck movies or the James Wan stuff or any of the Joss Whedon stuff or the Zack Snyder justice. Like, you know what?

This works. This is exactly that because. This is not pulling the trigger even as much as Supergirl and Superman have or, or lanterns like lanterns pulls the trigger on true detective. It does it like this. This doesn't want to commit because just like those Snyder DC movies, there was nothing to commit to.

It's ultimately nothing to say. They robbed this movie of everything to say by making him a villain. There's nothing for this movie to say. He definitely can work in a Batman world. And I think it's just got to be consistent and work.

Because what it's mostly trying to do and what it definitely feels like it's drawing from is Batman the Animated Series. Which is, again, arguably the best version of Batman that's ever happened. Like, it is... so well done when you find the right episodes and overall, it's just really impressive. So I actually did go back and was, and was watching some, cause this one, I think the most of what they're pulling from, especially in the beginning, there is the feet of clay episodes, which are the introduction of, of clay face in Batman, the animated series. And it definitely is a basic overall version of the actor turning into clay face story. it makes him, he's not sympathetic at all as the actor though, in the animated version, he's just kind of a jackass from the get go.

Like, but he's already like, he already has the problem. It's not like we watch it happen by the time we meet him in these, again, they're super short episodes. So it's like you, by the time we're introduced to him, he already has the issue. He's already falling apart. He's already using the chemicals to fix his face.

And then that starts to just make him hostile. And he, He just abuses his friend from the get go there. Like even the one guy who stands by him in the animated show, he's just terrible to him the whole time. So like, he's not much of a sympathetic character there, but it definitely fits in that version of Gotham, that version of the Batman that's been introduced in the animated series. They're just right there with each other.

It really does kind of work. So I think there is a way to make that work, but, This is just not this is not that same tone of what you're getting out of the animated series in this movie. And you're definitely like at this point, we haven't even seen the Batman that would have to match with this. So like that makes it harder for us to even be like, well, wait, so what are we doing with this guy now that we've gotten to the end? Which, again, that end was sort of set up in one of the episodes as well, the way that it ends there. it's pretty much straight up how I think it's supposed to go in one of the episodes further down the line when they keep going with, with Clayface.

And I don't know, like, again, I think it, that villain works really well in that animated series. So there is a way to do it. I just don't know that this was the way. And again, I feel like it starts okay. And it does make him a, a, sympathetic character and you like what he's trying to do as it starts to be him just sort of getting revenge but it again it is like that last third or so where you're just like well wait now who is he what is he and so i don't know i i think that's part of the issue is like we don't have our pre-established batman and batman world to see how he fits into it and see how he matches up with the other half of what should be this story which is batman who isn't here Or if.

It even has, you know, what is it tonally like with the other villains? I mean, not even to speak to Batman, but what are the other villains like in this world that, you know. Two-Face or Joker? Like, are they going to interact with Clayface? Is that a thing?

Like, will they be as aghast at dealing with him as, like, the people that we've seen now? It just feels like something that's not going to ever be answered. genuinely. And I don't think that anyone, and I don't think anyone making this movie wanted to answer that question or made this movie to answer any of it. And it's at the end of the movie where it feels like it's trying to tie back into that sentiment that this. Movie was not being made with.

The two thirds of this movie are a very different movie because they feel like a Mike Flanagan movie. That's just trying to be its own thing, which is perfectly fine. Um, It literally just being a standalone Clayface movie or series of movies, those Venom movies may never have anything to do with the MCU. Best we can tell, they won't, which is good. Why not just give us three Clayface movies and have them just be like those Venom movies?

Have them be this universe's version of Venom because there's versions of Venom where he's a villain and Venom. Also could be a body horror character. Venom is kind of a body horror character as it is. It probably should have been more in those other movies. I mean, it kind of was, right?

I feel like that was my issue. I had little to do with those Venom movies, but I feel like that was my issue. They took what I felt was such a cool... villain or anti-hero depending on who you ask in the comic book world i mean. There's multiple versions you know yeah he definitely starts off like he's a villain and and certainly looks like he should be a villain so you could do something really cool and dark and like i feel like then they. Got this movie and we're like oh what if we made it a funny buddy movie like like I just, that rubbed me the wrong way because of that.

I don't know. What, that it was a buddy, like buddy comedy? That it just made Venom a joke. Like it just like, it defanged him so much that like, nope, you can't murder that lady. Was it any better or any worse than what they did in Spider-Man 3?

Well, again, that's not the place to say. It's not the bar to say. It is the bar because that's the only other time we've gotten Venom. No, and they fumbled the ball there too. I think that the Venom movies are better than Venom and Spider-Man 3 because at least the Venom movies.

Are like a unified idea. I get it. Like you're not the first person or the last person or the only person to say like, I don't like what they did with Venom because it's a little jokey and it's a little- It's very jokey. I get it. I don't disagree.

But at the same time, you know what? Like they're not like. Any of those other movies. Like at least they're fucking weird and jokey and like strange and they have woody harrelson in that horrible red wig and at the end of the first one like they're they're making choices maybe they're not always the best ones but at least they're not bound by what would have been at the time that mcu tone that was just so overwhelmingly like part of the like marvel what was it like phase three was that what it was where it was like everything had the same like tone it was like oh we're gonna have this like serious moment undercut by a joke i would rather have a movie that's just jokey throughout than a movie that's like trying to be serious but then utter undercutting every serious moment with a joke because that's all those joss whedon movies were And it set the tone for Marvel so hard for pretty much up until now.

Like, I mean, like I would say that Spider-Man movie is like the first time and same with Thunderbolts where it's like, Oh, you mean we can like have a serious conversation here and it doesn't have to be undercut by like dick. And fart jokes. The Marvel equivalent of dick and fart jokes. Like, I will throw in the Guardians 2. I feel like Guardians, especially Guardians 3, got pretty dark.

I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it because I've heard it's very emotionally manipulative and not necessarily in a fun way. It is, but it's also like you're just watching. We already... they're already weird, screwed up characters in the first two, but like, we're just watching them. Almost everybody in the cast that we love is just broken at this point.

Like they've been through so much shit that they're just like such a mess. They're like, I actually just rewatched it recently just cause I hadn't seen it in a while. And I was just like, I really like a lot of what they're doing. And they really, they take what they're doing with rocket and make it in a important story for this for this character but everybody not just him not just star lord like everybody is just such a mess by the end of that movie that it's it is a lot to take so it's like i i will say there's there's some fun moments here and there but not near as much like they definitely went full-on lean into the darkness on that one so i i Again, that's further into the run. So by that time we were getting the third Spider-Man and the third Guardians and they were allowing them to do a little.

I think those are the ones that hold up a little better for me. They were so interested in like doing a certain thing for so long that it's nice that they finally kind of have seemingly stopped. But this I would say that this movie really belongs in those Snyder DCEU movies. They have that same tone. I could see Ben Affleck's Batman fighting this version of Clayface.

See, I don't see as much of the Justice League version of it. What I do see is this would fit in just fine with Suicide Squad. The first. Or Batman v Superman? The one everyone hates, Suicide Squad.

I mean, it's still technically part of the same world and they have their little cameos or whatever. But I feel like that is another one of those that's not a good movie. But I have rewatched it a couple of times now because there's such good elements in it. Are you talking about the one with Will Smith? Yeah.

And again, people hate that movie. But I'm like, there's definitely great moments in it. I saw that thing in theaters. I feel like I have a reason to hate it. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it is not good. I don't pretend like it is. But there's moments along the way that I'm like, this is what you could have done. Like, you see moments of like, if you... took this and put it in another movie that wasn't a train wreck. Like this moment works, and this moment works, and this character's good here.

And like, if you see the pieces of what could have been a really good superhero movie, and it's just such a mess. But I feel like this Clayface would fit in with that just fine. Like he would hang out with With any of those characters, he is definitely like the stand in for any of that other stuff along the way. And that tone of what's going on in this movie, I think would have played just fine in that world. So I think it's closer to that for me than even like the Justice League Superman of it all. what is the tone of this movie?

Is this movie super serious? No, because I think it knows, I think it, it's trying to lean into more of a horror movie. I think there's a lot of aspects of it that work too. Like the, the stuff that is just tension, like, and, and knowingly like messing with you in the audience. Like it's when you've got him in the bathroom of the plane and, with scissors inches away from his eyeball.

Like that's just messing with the audience. Like they know exactly what they're doing at that point and whether or not it's necessary for this movie or this character, that moment is effective because you're going, Oh God. Oh yeah. Like it's constantly just pushing to see how far it can, it can make people squirm in their seats. And I feel like there's several times in this movie that it does that, that even if it doesn't work well, full-on body horror there are several times when it's just messing with him injuring himself and making people watch it because there were times when i feel like people were like audibly weirded out by some of the stuff going on in the theater that like you can see that's the kind of stuff that i think they're they're trying to lean into the the horror end of it more than the super serious superhero-ness of it all i again i didn't get near as much superhero from this But I do feel them trying to be a tense movie, trying to be a horrific movie, even if it doesn't always work.

I feel like that's going on from the filmmaking aspect of it. Those are the more interesting parts of the movie is when it wants to do a horror movie thing. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of don't need any more superhero movies.

Like I'm, I'm, I know that, you know, I don't know if we've talked about this, but I know I've talked about this with Mike. Like I'm really good. Like I, I'm not in need any more of any more superhero movies. Like we've, we've gotten peak saturation at this point to the point where Marvel is struggling to make a comic book. It has been for a while.

I'm not sure who really even cares about the Marvel movies anymore. And I think that that's on Marvel. That's on them. They haven't really been engaged in making quality movies. And I kind of checked out after Endgame, understandably and rightfully so.

Like, it was really a struggle to get me to care about even that Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man movie. It was fine. And they spread themselves so thin because then not only were they cranking out, you know, five movies a year, but then they kept putting out series too. And even the series weren't that good. Like they started solid, but as time went on, it was one year, one year had like eight releases or some shit.

Like, well, I mean, as time went on, like I got to the point, I'm like, I don't even want to watch this series. And you're like, I would see it and be like it. Okay. This could, I really am not even engaged in the idea here, but I like Marvel in general. I'll try to watch it.

And then like, I'm just like, I don't care about what's going on in this whole series right now. And then, I mean, that's, you know, investing six and eight hours at a time in those just to come back to a movie that also wasn't working too. So it's like, they are a hundred percent to blame. And I think there are some high points along the way. I'm not throwing everything out, but I'm just like, they did not put the effort in to keep up what they were doing.

And you see audiences eventually were just like, yeah, Maybe we're ready for something else too. It cracks me up that at one point Marvel released like eight things in one year. It was a lot. Guys, we don't need four TV shows and four movies in one year. Your creativity, I appreciate that you are unbounded by financials, but you should be bounded by the needs of the creative because you are overdoing it by a size.

Margin. Riding high when you've got that much power and that much success is like, it's never going to go away. I'm like, well, I don't know that that's true. In fact, now I do know that's not true. No, they've had to resort to every trick known to man to try to get people interested in Doomsday.

And You know, that's that's the thing. I wish Marvel would make something like this. I guess. I mean, they try to, you know, so I would say like this, but like something where it's like not something I would expect of them. And I guess Spider-Man is kind of like that.

And Thunderbolts is kind. Of like that. But still, it's like it's still. Kind of even this is still kind of just a superhero thing. Like I know you you're saying like, well, it's not that much of a superhero thing, but the worst parts of this movie are because it is a superhero thing.

Well, I mean, they were leading towards what I feel is way closer to this with man thing. Then again, I think they just got distracted or handed it off to somebody else and it didn't happen. But they definitely like, because werewolf by night is probably as close as you're going to get. You know, we mentioned it earlier, but it's definitely like what they were trying to do in this world on that side of the fence. And like, so we get to the end of that and the man thing of it all feels very close to like, the clay face tone.

So it's like, it definitely seems like that could have been something on it and it worked fine for streaming. So that could have just been an interesting show and maybe not a lengthy show. Again, sometimes I think they overextend themselves with these super long. I liked the one hour one off, you know, werewolf by night because it didn't make you like all right, here's seven more hours of this after this episode's done. And we got to come up with something to fill all this time.

Like I think that's what we talked about last time. Yeah. We talked about that last time with the, you know, like at this point, how much do you have to even watch to be able to watch any of this? Like you can't enjoy any of this. Like, You know, I don't even think you could watch Doomsday without having seen at least something else before.

And, you know, we were joking last time we recorded because we talked about Crystal Lake. Like, how refreshing it was to be able to watch a TV show that I didn't have to appreciate anything ahead of time to appreciate it. And with anything Marvel now, it's like, how many rabbit holes do I have to go down to be able to understand this one thing? Like, Vision Quest... is the worst best example of that. I'm not deriding the show's quality or anything else.

It's just it is very indicative of where we are with things, which is to say where we are is so far in the weeds that all we have at this point is all of this mythology we've just created and built. On top of and built on top of. It's like, yeah, no, there's... no chance anymore that you could just watch these movies like and that they don't they i guess don't know or understand or care about that i just like and it's like oh no it's the audience that doesn't get it it's like you've alienated the audience by making these movies so involved that you can't just watch the movie you have to do your homework first it's like who wants to do that even the most like you know cynical amongst us who will do it for a movie even we don't want.

To do But some of it's just too much time to fill, too. And that's why I think even this, because you suggested earlier that maybe this need to be a streaming series. I don't want that. Four episodes max. Four episodes.

Maybe. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I don't want to have to, like, I feel like even at the end of this, I was like, they're running out of stuff. Like, like I said, it could be a 20 minute segment.

It's, it's completely just like limp dicking on a lot of the stuff. Like we have, Oh, we have a guy get, uh, you know, he holds his head against his body and he suffocates him. Like there's stuff going on in this movie. And we're like, where's the. Body horror of him? falling apart and becoming Clayface.

Like it's, it's not here. It's not here in the way that it needs to be here. And you have a guy who's injected himself with nanite stem cells. And this is what we're getting. Like it's, it's not enough.

It's, it's not enough. It needed to be more. And it's not because it is again, like you said, reluctantly a superhero movie, genuinely reluctantly, like whether or not it wants to be part of anything that James Gunn is doing. is besides the fact it is and whether or not James Gunn wants it to be part of what he's doing. It is like, you know, I just don't know that I would be on board with more of the story at this point. Like if they do something else with it down the line, I would be interested to see maybe if they find some good way to work it in.

I, again, I like Clayface as a, as the monstrous character he is like in the animated series. So that would be cool to see if they do it right. But again, like I said, even a four hour series, I'm like, that's just a lot of time to fill for something that again, still seems like it's just setting up the first part of a thing that needs the other part of the thing to make it work at all. Like, I feel like it's still so much set up here that like, he can't be a final character by himself. He still has to be half of what's going to happen when the other half comes along to fight with him.

Everything else just seems like set up at this point. I guess the question I have for you is, can Clayface exist without Batman? Because that's kind of what you were asking before about the Morbius and the Madame Web of it all. What is the point of any of this if you don't even have Spider-Man? That's the bigger question here.

By your approximation, what is the point of any of this if they're not going to put Batman in these movies? I was shocked that we did not get a single Batman anything. Not even a cameo at the end as he's standing on a building watching him or something. That would be where you would end. Joker had more than this movie did.

And like, I'm not saying Joker is a great way of doing it, but it's a better way of doing it than this where it's like, what is, what, where does it, what, what's going on? Like, I'm not asking to have it explained, but like you need to do some explaining because you're the movie, not me. Even Suicide Squad had a full on cameo from Batman and it is not a good movie. But they worked him in so that you knew, oh, well, eventually that's where they're leading to. We just have to sit through the rest of this dumb movie to get there.

But yeah, it's like with this, it's like I wish it worked better. Like, again, I don't think the character as a human is a bad character. Like I said, that first third is pretty interesting watching him just get set up and sold down the river. And then, like I said, I like him as a big monstrous character at the end. I just feel like it's a weird trip that takes us there.

And I don't feel like it has any direction. Like it knows where it wants to go. It doesn't know how to get there exactly. And even then, once it gets there, it doesn't know what to do without the other part of the equation, which is Batman. So these are the issues I'm still kind of dealing with.

I think, to your point, I'm not sure how much I care about this character without Batman. Because Batman sets the tone of what this character is. I mean, imagine if this character came out honking his nose like a fucking clown. You'd be like, what is Batman? Is Batman going to be this jokey character?

Is Batman going to be the super serious character that lives in the same universe where a guy has a knife jammed into his mouth and cuts up half of his face? Is that Batman's universe? I mean, that sounds like Batman, really. Right, yeah. Like every Batman I've ever heard.

Is Batman dark? Like he is, certain interpretations, but not every single one. You know, I think of Tim Burton's Batman, not dark at all. I mean, the universe is very dark. The character, not as much.

He's definitely, he's messed up, but he's not like dark and takes himself super serious. He's just sort of dealing with things as best he can in a very dark world. But yeah, by the time you get to the, the next two, it's not really dark from any perspective. There's, there's, there's a lot of crazy fun things going on in those, uh, Those next two. Well, maybe that's the thing.

Maybe Metropolis is just this really upbeat and fun place and Gotham is just this real bummer. Maybe Gotham is just this real bummer of a place and Metropolis is so much better. Again, why not say that? Give us an idea of what's going on in this universe. I'm not saying explain things, but give us a broader sense of the universe that this character occupies because I am generally unclear as to...

Yeah, he's nominated for an Oscar of sorts. Like, what does that even mean? Like nothing. Don't introduce things like this if you're not even going to explain them a little bit, like a little bit. Just don't don't be doing this lip service thing when we know this isn't like the first movie in a thing where it's like, well, we're revealing that this is Clayface in the third act and you didn't know it was part of the Batman universe and we're establishing it now.

Like. Nope. They didn't even do that. Imagine if they had done that. Imagine if that had been this.

Imagine if this had been split and all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, this is the James Gunn DCU. Wouldn't that be crazy that that's what we're getting and it started with Clayface? Maybe if this movie were better. But you know what? I would be able to probably give it a pass if it did that more than doing...

Just the very basic and obvious, which I feel like this movie does. It has those moments, but those moments that it has, those kind of like body horror moment moments are not even for the movies. Like, like we mentioned the substance and together. Like those are bigger in their kind of reach than this movie and kind of the expectations of this movie. And those movies do the body horror better than this movie does.

And I don't know why. Like you said, if you're going to do Clayface this way, he's got to be a body horror character. That's the only way you can do it. You can do it any other way, but if you're going to do it this way, he's a body horror character. Yeah, unless we're not doing the origin story of him as a human.

If it's just he is that monstrous thing, he's born of clay, and that's all he is is a big monster. That's how he started, and that's what he is. That's fine. You can introduce him that way and just not give him a weird– super sad human story to start things off. But like, if you're going to do him as human, I don't know how you do it.

That's not body horror. Like how could you have this tap into you and not be horrified by it? So, and I think of the other character that this reminded me of that again, feels like, Oh. We don't want, he's an antihero. He's a really sympathetic character.

Did they not watch dark man before they made this movie? It definitely has a lot of that to it. Again, it's not here as well done. But then it strays away from it. It like runs at high speed away from like this being a sympathetic character.

And again, it doesn't work because it feels like it was trying to meet another expectation, not the expectation of the narrative. I think there's so many good villains in that world, specifically if we start pulling from like the animated series, like that's where people learned about all these lesser villains. It's like everybody knew, you know, your big four because they used to be on the live action show, you know, years and years ago. But like outside of that, normal people that weren't like hardcore comic fans didn't know about most of these villains. So you get, I mean, that's not only did they create Harley Quinn, but like, like Mr.

Freeze wasn't really a character that anybody else knew about until the animated series. So that's one of those that like you, you can watch even in that, like, you know, 22 minute episode is presented as such a tragic figure. And you could see how you could do like all of these villains and like focus on their, their tragic origin story and make it work. But I don't know that that translates into each one gets a movie, you know, it's like if we're, There's some great ones that, you know, the ventriloquist that people are really like creeped out by that guy. But do I need an hour and 48 minute ventriloquist movie?

Like, probably not. Do we need a whole baby doll and like Clock King? People like that guy. But do I need a whole movie setting up him as a villain? I don't think so.

So I think there's a way to do that and there's a way to dig into the dark side. super sad stories that lead to all these characters. That's definitely like in penguin and Joker. And like, we get that with a lot of the, the big names and it's in all of this rogues gallery, but I just don't know that you can do it full fledged, full movie and not have it start to suffer without also having Batman there to fight at the end of it. You know, it's like, it's got to counterbalance it with Batman or something else. That's not just this guy. going through this story for the whole movie, because it, again, it just feels uneven.

Well, you said Mr. Freeze. I mean, that, that is how you should have made this movie. You make Clay face the guy who is like the lizard experimenting on himself becomes the monster or whatever. And there you go.

Bob's your uncle. Like I don't, why he needed to be a villain feels more like an expectation of someone else, not an expectation of the narrative. Like he should have just, he should have just been, a sympathetic anti-hero who, yeah, he does some things that maybe I wouldn't do, but I also haven't had my face cut up by the mob. So there you go. Like it, and I guess it's like, why, why are we, you know, I'm sure you've heard the term like over-engineered, like why are we over-complicating things?

Like this is a over-engineering problem. Like you over-engineered your movie and then you added things in there to, to have a twist happen that, oh, by the way, and this is something, you know, we didn't mention about the twist. The twist pays off in the same fucking scene you do it. You didn't even like wait five minutes. You didn't have it be like, well, Matt Hagen has been walking around as Max Minghella for a while, getting up to no good.

Like, nope. She finds him in the next, like lit at the same scene in the next room. Like, was there a scene in between here? Like what was I, did I, what? I mean, I'm not even, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating.

Am I like, it's literally the same scene. No, she opens the door and it's like, oh, I was just talking to you, but you're dead on the floor in the next room. So that's probably not you, huh? Like it, it's just, like I said, it's just out of nowhere. Just like, okay.

I mean, yeah, we set up the he knows he's kind of piecing it together, but that needed to be an extra 20 minutes or so of like leading to this point and showing him get to the point of like, well, this feels like, you know, my only way out is to, I have to do this now if I'm going to survive. And even more so if it was like setting up, because like I said, I like their heading toward a romance type of angle, but like, it seems like that sort of skips a step too, where it's like, it's just at the point where they're starting to like each other, like halfway into this movie. And then it jumps to him murdering her fiance so they can be together. And like, it jumps to the end where he's already like delusionally wanting to be with her, like obsessively wanting to be with her.

And it's like, again, did we skip a step? Because I feel like that would be fine if we got to that point, but I'd feel like we didn't get to that way. Honestly, we just jumped to it. And like, it feels like, We're missing a big portion of that middle part where he becomes the crazy full-on villain at the end versus where he was at even at the halfway point of this movie. I think if you talk about DC doing things rushing and jumping to conclusions and jumping ahead is something DC loves to do.

Because if you talk about Justice League or anything of kind of those things in terms of like why is it the way it was or what's the sentiment surrounding it? It's because they couldn't be bothered to wait. It's because they couldn't be bothered to actually let it build and give it a moment to breathe and like, oh, here we go. We actually have something going on. It's like, nope.

We're just trying to get to it because we saw that they got to it already and they were successful when they got there. And it's like, you know what? Sometimes you don't always have to make your bones or pay your dues. But in In film, with audiences, you have to kind of build up their trust, and DC's not interested in doing that, and they still aren't interested in doing that. And this film, I think, proves out, because this film needed at least another 20 minutes.

Genuinely, this film needed more time, because it is an incomplete narrative as it stands. It just jumps ahead, and DC is known for jumping ahead. Well, yeah, I feel like it's because they felt like they were so far behind from the beginning. Like, Marvel had already logged in so many movies by the time they got rolling on their projects that they were just like, oh, God, we got to catch up with them. I'm like, no, you can't.

Like, you can't jump ahead six or eight movies from where they've built up all this time. Again, not that they did it perfect. They dropped the ball a few times in the beginning, too. But it's like eventually... they figured it out and they got to where they needed to be, obviously, because they became super successful then. But it's like by that time, they were way more interested in playing catch up than they were with trying to tell a good story or trying to set up this universe so that it works in the long run.

They were just busy trying to be like, hurry up, we got to get to where they are. And it's like, no, that's not going to work. Like, obviously it didn't. So I don't And there's space enough for two in all of this. Like, yeah, again, there's, there's two very distinctly different worlds out there in, in the comic book world and the, you know, stuff that's been on TV.

Like there's very different fan bases. There's a lot of crossover even in fans, but like they know how to separate them and they know how to appreciate different things from different, you know, Marvel, DC, different heroes, whatever. Like, the fans understand what it is more than the people making all those it seems to be because they feel like they have to compete and it has to be a one-to-one comparison it's like no you can do a different thing over here and the fans that like that will show up for it you just have to do it well not fast like they're just so busy with trying to keep up with the other one yeah you see what happens. It's the downhilling of it all for me i'm just like we gotta get We had to get to the point that they were at where we have the crossover movie.

And it's like, nobody gives a shit if you haven't set your characters up like that justice league sucked because those characters were, were ill defined. And that has nothing to do with Joss Whedon or Zack Snyder or anyone else directing the movie. Like, why do I care about any of these characters? Like, why should I care about any of them? Oh, I shouldn't.

Okay. Got it. Like, you've not given me a reason to care. You haven't given me a reason. Why is it my job to care about these characters?

Like you need to work. And like, give me a reason to care. It's such a shame because I think they spent most of this movie setting up a reason to care about Matt Hagen as a character. But they also, again, they don't give us any... complexity to his character. Like I never see the character that they're claiming is like, Oh, you know, all these people were coming forward that had like stories about him.

Like we're assuming that those are all lies, but they could be true. If they wanted to give us a version of the character that we're not supposed to like, that we kind of see getting is just desserts becoming clay. He's like, that was also a direction you could have gone instead. They just kind of, chose nothing which i find to be the most reprehensible option like you have all this time and energy and money and a mike flanagan script and instead of like making a concerted decision on any of this you're just like man just kind of do all of it because we don't know what the audience likes if. If they're going to make him a full-on villain by the end they probably should have kind of done that they should have made him like a little more in the in the in the dirt have him kill naomi aki like have him kill her by accident like or on purpose even like why what does it matter or just make him like a questionable character like everybody else in this story is like grimy and villainous and like everybody is involved in the underworld and like everybody is dirty in this so it's like if he was also one of those guys, cause I mean, they sell him as this kid from, you know, the projects, you know, and he was this kid that came from nowhere.

So like maybe he did some stuff to try to get successful that he's not proud of. So it's like, if we lean into that a little, it might not be so crazy once he ends up where he does versus he is like so squeaky clean at the beginning. Like he is this perfect dude in this up and coming superstar and like everything in his life is, is great. But that's– if you're not like giving him a reason to become dark, it's like while– yes, they set him up and like he has reason because everybody screws him over. But like as a character, it's just so out of nowhere to go from like this perfect squeaky clean character that he starts off to just murdering people that get in his way down the line.

It's like that's a weird slide to end up on in– hour and 46 minutes or 48 minutes or i don't know it's a quick turnaround for something that's that drastically different from one end of the movie to the next is. It better or worse than nolan's usage of two-face because i guess that's the other body horror thing we could talk about and probably should talk about because. I think i think in that movie it actually works pretty well I think like, you know, I don't like that movie. It does. It's just not enough time.

No, it's not. But that movie's three hours long. We don't need more movie, but we needed more time with him as Two-Face. Like we get plenty of time with him as Harvey, but like it's so quick that he gets to be, you know, Two-Face and then it's over with already. It's like, oh, and then we killed off the character we could have made a whole nother movie with. instead to keep alive the character that in the real world we don't get to make another movie with so it's like again that's just real world problems that like oops guess we wouldn't have killed off harvey if we knew we could have made another movie with him versus where we wanted to go with joker and that's never going to happen so i feel like that's also part of it too is they didn't know what was coming they really should have kept harvey alive so we could have had a really cool third act in the third movie where he shows up and is the real villain but like no again you just you make a call and you don't know how life's gonna turn out so.

And Harvey Dent doesn't die in such a definitive way in that second movie that you couldn't have just had him come back to life anyways. I mean, in a comic book movie, certainly. No, we were we were just messing around. He's fine. He's fine.

People fall off of high ledges all the time and survive for fuck's sake. He's got he's got like a he's got a scar. See, look at that. Look at his face. Exactly.

He survived because of the magical thingy majiggy wound. his coin saved him. I don't know. Batman's back. It's broken in the next movie. And he, he literally survives and fixes it in like two months, two months, guys.

It's I I'm really irritated by body horror being used by superhero movies in the same way that they use other genres because they, I, they haven't done anything. You know, Tetsuo the Iron Man is probably the closest we've ever gotten to like an actual body horror superhero movie that does the body horror right and the superhero right. And that's I mean, again, like it shows like the actual horrifying nature of like what would happen if your body was becoming that. And, you know, I do think that as much as Josh Trank, you know, completely pooched it with Fantastic Four. the thing is a good example of how to do body horror right if you wanted to do it like that is horrifying to like start turning into a rock man like it's not particularly pleasant I mean there is part of the character of the thing that's about you know like the ostracization of the character because he looks the way that he does and you know I'm so glad that the new movie doesn't lean into that because it's like there's also part of it where it's like that's also very passe and doesn't need to like exist anymore like We don't need to have like the whole city's ostracizing him because he looks different.

Like what are we teaching kids? If that's like a problem, like fucking just like be like, no, it's like we love him because he's literally saving our city and he doesn't have to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Like even now, like with the Teenage Ninja Turtles, like why are they hiding in the dark? The city would love them. Like, you know, if they need secret identities, it's kind of hard to have one when you're a seven foot tall turtle, right?

Like, no, they have a, the trench coat. It's fine. Yeah. It's a hat and a trench coat. You're good.

It's just, it's so silly. Like all of this superhero stuff is so silly. And that's, it's like, I'm not saying you can't take it seriously, but if you're going to take it seriously, you gotta have us understanding what about this needs to be taken seriously. And that's what this movie doesn't do. Like it doesn't, it doesn't make it clear what of this is serious and what of this is, is kind of like supposed to be like a joke or fun.

And, I'm so kind of, I'm so put off by sub genre kind of like just, I don't know, co-opting in superhero movies because it's like, are you doing this from a place of love? Are you doing this because you saw something else do it somewhat successfully? And that's what I can't figure out. Cause like, there's never been like a body horror movie. That's like a multi-billion dollar movie.

Maybe the substance. I don't know. It's like, why, why would you be like a DC movie needs to be body horror? Like I would think if you're making Clayface, you'd want to stay away from it in this day and age. You know what I mean?

I mean, again, it does kind of put you in a certain spot. Like it forces you to make a certain kind of movie. I mean, there's a point in this movie that you can't tell me it's not echoing the fly. When he's like, kill me, kill me now. Like, that is literally the fly.

Like, one for one. Well, there's aspects that are the Invisible Man. It's got a little Frankenstein. You know, it's all of the monsters kind of rolled up into one, which could be good if done right. But, again, it just doesn't totally hammer it home the way it needs to for something that's that big and that much to tackle.

It just, again, it skips steps that it doesn't need to. Would it have been better if Batman had been introduced before this movie? Unless he was also going to be in this? Because that's the thing. Had he shown up in the third act and they fight? it might've saved this movie.

Like if that point, if by the third act, he's a full on villain, like he is here, he's already murdered the cop at that point. So if he's just full on villain and then out of nowhere, bam, Batman walks in the door and we're like, Oh, the audience loses its mind. And like, we didn't know this was going to have Batman. And then there's just a full on fight of them at the end. I don't know.

That sounds kind of awesome. So like, if you do that with it, I think it could have, you know, definitely made it a much bigger deal, uh, then just sort of leaving it and being like, well, and now he's a villain. I hope something comes of that instead of... We don't know. That is what it feels like at the end of the movie.

It's like, well, I hope we come back to this at some point in the future. But you know what they say? We certainly could. Still waiting on that Blade movie. Question mark.

Still waiting on Harry Styles to show up in the MCU. Still waiting on Brett Goldstein from Ted Lasso to show up in the MCU. And you know what? Probably like Clayface in the DCU, we're gonna keep having to wait. Like, I just...

I, you know, and that's the thing that, you know, like to talk, let's talk business here for a moment. Let's talk the money of it all. Movie was a rather small budget budget movie. Didn't make its budget back. Like, and I don't know, it had a good rating.

Like people who went and saw it seemed to enjoy it. It got pretty well reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes. Definitely more well reviewed than Supergirl did. And I, like you said, to what end, like what, what, what, What do we do with any of this? Where does it go from here?

I think it broke even, at least, if you do worldwide. So it's at least made back its budget. So I don't think it's going to be a flop, but I don't know that it's going to go much further. I don't think there's anything big coming out this next weekend, so it still could maybe coast on another number one weekend. I'd say after that, it's done, because it's just not going to pull in any more new viewers.

But... don't know like again where they're going with it I think unless you're leading to something else which to me has to be batman then like i don't know that you can do anything else with it do we do more of these villain movies and then just have the villains team up and then i mean we're starting to do that with venom i guess by the third one there we're pulling in other weird offshoot villains that were you know fighting with Spider-Man, but Spider-Man wasn't there. So I guess we could try to do that with ease and just start teaming up our bad guys. But does anybody want that? I don't know that they do. I think without Batman, it does seem like you're, you're going nowhere.

You know, it's got to lead to something. If it's going to full on decide that it's a comic book movie, it's going to have to end up in a comic book. You know, it needs to have your big comic book fight at the end or what are we doing? And I think that's kind of where we end here. It's just like, That was, you know, that was cool.

I liked it. What are we doing? Like, it still kind of ends that way, so. They co-opted a little bit of John Wick at the end of the movie. They're like, we're going to have him kill people at the end of the movie in a club.

Which, I mean, is fine. Like, I like the idea of what this movie is. I don't like what this movie ends up being and where it ends. And I'm all for having a discussion about, oh, you know, the disfigurement in Hollywood and how does that affect your career? Like you, you, you want to have that conversation too.

And I just don't like, what are we doing here? Like this, I think this movie just needed to understand from itself what it wanted to be first and go down a path that it chooses and not expect the audience to kind of just sit here and go, well, you're kind of doing a bunch of different things. So I'm a, I'm a, I'm along the ride for that. Cause there's a little bit of Joker and a little bit of this, a little bit like that. Mashing those things up and expecting it to work.

Sometimes it does, but this time I'm just, I enjoyed it. It is different, but you know, different doesn't always mean good. Different just means different. And this is different, but I don't think it, I don't think it gets ahead of, if I was living, if I was living in a time where Thunderbolts and Spider-Man hadn't come out. I think I might have a different opinion, but as much as Spider-Man is a big triple a piece of.

Pop culture, it at least had a heart like that. It actually like kind of like dug into and same with Thunderbolts. Like it had its problems, but at the end of the movie, it wasn't just like a big CGI fuck fest. Like they did something else. And this movie doesn't have it at the end.

It doesn't have a big CGI kind of fuck fest, thankfully, but I kind of, if, they had shown Clayface and not done the jaws thing where apparently they couldn't show him until the end. Of the movie. Like what, what fucking does is the Clayface origin story so important? We couldn't have just skipped it altogether and had a movie about him being Clayface. Like, and also by the way, for me, yes, I appreciate that Clayface, one of his abilities is like, he's able to turn into other people, but that has a very short, span of time that that's interesting because after a while people are just going to figure out well anybody could be Clayface and what fun is that like I much more like the idea of Clayface being this giant monster that he has to contend with less like oh well he can be anybody like.

Okay That aspect is there, but I feel like even in this movie, we don't make enough use of it to make it the thing. Like if that's the thing, again, it's kind of the dark man of it all. It's like that was kind of his move and like he used that to his advantage to do what he needed to do and used it like a lot that it made it work in that movie. Whereas here we do a little of it. We do enough to make these specific parts of the scenes work.

But it's not really his thing because he's also doing the crazy body aspect and still having issues that are kind of Clayface like, but we don't fully go there till the very end. So, yeah, it's like it didn't commit to one or the other of those either, which I feel like that that is a cool aspect. You could have in a different type of story made use of that more, but it doesn't really fully make use of it in this one. And I don't know if it's because it just doesn't think the audience would go along with it. where the audience isn't, you know, along for the ride for a character that's just kind of nasty the whole way, it would have been much more interesting for him to just be nasty the whole way through.

And just, you know, his exterior begins to reflect his kind of corrupted interior. Like, what the fuck? And I just wrote that movie for you, guys. That's not even original for fuck's sake. In the animated series.

Like, that guy sucks. Like, from the time we meet him, he's already an asshole. So it's just like, and he's, again, it's more like, Jekyll and Hyde or Invisible Man because he's using that like a weird face cream that makes his face like that so he can manipulate it and go back to being pretty or look like other people so he's addicted to that almost and that's what he's using he needs to get his fix and like so he can continue on being a normal person but again he's a horrible human being by the time we meet him so that is already a more interesting aspect there of him not being a good person and addicted to this thing that is the only way he can get by in regular life. And then that leads to a, again, a more interesting story where we don't have any of that really with this guy.

He already starts off pretty imperfect and we watch him go completely to the other end, but there's no real connection between the two. There's no real journey. It just sort of, he just gets screwed over for the first third and then it jumps to him being a villain. So that's, I don't know. It's a weird, it's a weird journey.

I think it's one of those things where you, you know, they were sitting with the notes. They're like, he has to start off as more sympathetic. He has to be a really good guy to start the movie. Like no one's going to get on board if he's a villain to start with. Like, did you fucking see Joker?

It's, I guess my. Ultimate problem with this movie. And I think it, you know, we've, we could say this about Morbius or Madame Webb or, or Craven even like these movies feel like they were made 20 fucking years ago. And I'm saying that in terms of like the way the storytelling conventions exist in, let's call it conventional big budget, but not MCU movies, the MCU movies. I don't think anyone would ever say an MCU movie feels like a Sony movie or it feels like a, um, I mean, you know, Sony as in X-Men or those Spider-Man movies.

The offshoot Spider-Man. Right. And they would never level that against Marvel. Like even at Marvel's worst, they're still better than those movies are at their best. My God.

Like, and that's the thing. Like this movie is at times at its best, it is interesting, but at its worst, it is no good. it's, it's not as entertaining as Morbius. Cause at least Morbius is fun. At least Morbius is fucking stupid. Like it is just dumb.

Like I think Morbius knew what it was, you know, I'm not a Jared Leto fan. I think that's the problem is the Jared Leto. Well, sure. But at the same time, like the movie doesn't take itself seriously. Like this movie, by the end of it, it's taken itself pretty seriously.

Like, and that's, there's nothing wrong with that, but But like you said, to what end? I don't think this guy and Batman are going to have a back and forth monologue about their feelings. That's not ever going to happen. Even when you had Thomas Hayden Church in those Spider-Man movies as Sandman, because he did come back in that other one. They didn't even know what to do with him.

They cast him because he looked kind of like the character in the comic book. That's the only reason they cast him. And even then, they didn't really. That character should have been body horror. He turns into sand.

That's pretty awful. Seems like he would be, yeah. It's the same thing here. It's like this guy is a big pile of sentient clay or goo or mud. What else does that need?

Why couldn't it just be. What sentience a puddle of clay is given by accident by some sort of science? Why does it have to be a human? I mean, yeah, I get the human being of it all, but the human being of it all. Is not interesting.

I've seen this before. Like you said, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein, all these other things. It's just not.

I don't know. I've seen this before, done other ways, done more interesting. And yes, this is interesting mildly because it's a dc thing but i i think broadly you'd be better off watching the fly because it pretty much tells the same story like that's i think for it it's that's the bar that's set very very high and the fly is such an amazing like genuinely amazing film that there's no reason and i'm not saying like there's no reason to make this movie But you notice there haven't been a lot of mobster TV shows since The Sopranos came out. You know why? Because I'm not sure there's much else to say.

And The Fly, I think, said about as much as any film is ever going to say about a certain kind of body horror experience. And this movie never gets any further than the kind of the initial conversations had in the fly. Like, this movie never gets any further than that. Is it the superhero movie of it all? Maybe.

Is it the, we're just not interested in telling that kind of story of it all? Probably. Is it drag an otherwise interesting, possibly Mike Flanagan script down? Yes, 100%. It drags this movie down.

Because this movie, I think, if Mike Flanagan had followed through and gone all the way with this and not left for Carrie or for other things, I think this movie may have been something where it's like, wow, can you imagine what DC is willing to let a director with a vision do? As opposed to, wow, this isn't shitty. Like, that's, I mean, like, is that not what essentially people are saying? Like, this is the third thing that's come out, and the first thing was good. Most people thought.

It was good, though I have plenty of friends who love Superman that didn't like that version of Superman. Whatever. Their choice. Supergirl, I don't think anyone's going to defend that movie. It's not great.

And then this movie, yes, it's fine, but a lot of the kind of praise on the internet, not so much the critics, but the praise on the internet is like, oh, this is different and interesting and not like the other things, like, okay, but like like you said, to what end you can't get by on that alone. And like, that is kind of where seemingly a lot of the conversation on the internet is like, that is enough. And like, that is not enough. Like that's where I ended on was where is again, where are we going with this? Cause I, I enjoyed what I started off with.

And I, like I said, I think it does an interesting, if you're going to take this shiny, perfect character and just beat the hell out of him. Like it starts off doing that pretty well. I think then it just doesn't know what to do with him, but knows where it has to be by the end and just jumps to that when it needs to. And I, I'm not, I'm not here for that anymore. Like I, I much would prefer you just commit fully.

And don't kind of half-ass it because half-assing it is an old way of doing things. It's, oh, well, comic books aren't allowed to be serious because they're comic books. It's like, I mean, if you want to do a serious thing, do a serious thing, but don't half-ass it. Don't half-foot in, half-foot out. And that's what this movie is.

That's... It worked for a while until the audiences got sick of it and decided that they wanted you to make a decision. And you can't try to sneak one under the wire now. So it doesn't have what it kind of feels like when you see a movie like this. It's like, are you trying to sneak one out on the audience?

Like, you think people still want to see this? People don't want to see we're watching it and somewhat enjoying it only because there's so much of a glut of something else that this is kind of a different taste. But this is still undercooked. It's not by any stretch of the imagination, like a fully formed idea. It may have even been like you added salt to something when we were asking for sugar like you didn't even fucking understand even.

I'm just back to my original question, which is by the end, I was just like, well, where are we going? Like, why did we set this up? They don't know. That was my initial take on it. It is trying to do something else, but then it's not along the way.

So where are we going? I don't know. As much as we've had a lot of issues with it, and a lot of it I feel like is mostly story-based. But as far as the like James Watkins of it, I think it looked pretty good. Like other, I'm not taking into account the effects end of it, not the weird shots of body horror.

I'm just talking about normal shots of what we're trying to build up into Gotham, what we're doing with a lot of this, a lot of the stuff in the club scenes and a lot of them out on the street. And he's, he's using and looking, it's Rob Hardy's, the cinematographer. So I think there's a lot of times when they're really heavily using color and they're doing pretty decent stuff with, with like lighting the scene. So I think it looked pretty good for, for a movie of this type. They don't have to do that again.

I think it loses a little sometimes when we focus more on what's going on with the body or that it's arguable whether you enjoyed the way that looked, but Some of it looked pretty good, but the other stuff, I think I was more impressed with just some of the basic shots of it. I think it did look pretty good. No, I agree. I think it looked better than Stargirl, Supergirl, which came out earlier this year. I think it looked better than that, a film that had a much bigger budget.

It is a stylistically interesting film. And to speak to the body horror, what they did with the body horror is kind of novel. We've never... really well. And it kind of looks like Neo and the Matrix at times, which, you know, Mr. Anderson, you can't say anything, Mr.

Hagen, you can't say anything. Like we have seen something like that before, but I do like that again, because it's Clayface, we do kind of see this somewhat different look of things. I mean, there's a moment in the film where Naomi Aki comes around a corner and he looks fucked up. Like, and, and it's, it's a scene where I'm like, what is this hell razor all of a sudden? Like it's, It's a shame because it knows how to do interesting body horror.

It just doesn't want to do it all the time. But it is interesting to look at. I will give it that. It is well done in a technical sense. I think the only thing that the film doesn't rise to is the script.

I think in terms of, like you said, the look of the film, well done. And I think it lives in a different world than Supergirl and Superman. And that's important if you're trying to bolster the world building through film form as opposed to other ways. Because, you know, again, you want people, you want the most people to interact with it in the biggest way possible. And that's going to be a movie released in theaters.

And, you know, why not build some, some world? I don't think they do a lot of it. I mean, they kind of seemingly aren't interested in some cases, but the amount that they do, you know, again, like this is a world that's interesting enough. I don't know. Like you said, I don't know to what end, but... they do at least have something to be going on in this world that they're building.

And it didn't always have that. Right. It's too much like the world of our own. And like, that's what Superman and Supergirl, at least they were not just like our own world. Like the world of Clayface just kind of seems like our world, like maybe a little bit more like, well.

It was a little bit more grimy. Yeah. But again, like there are places on your neighborhood. Exactly. There are places that are grimy here in this country.

Like it's not, yeah. So I don't know. Like it's, it, it occupies a weird space for me because I do appreciate where this movie is coming from, but I do think that there are parts of it where I'm just like, I, I think we resonate with different things in the kind of movies that we are watching that are like this movie. And I'm saying we, as in me and the filmmakers of this movie, because I just body horror movies are not conventional. And to say that this movie is conventional as a body horror movie is kind of the most insane thing you can say about it.

Genuinely. It's again, it's just such a mixed bag. And I think that may be part of the problem. I think we don't get enough body horror movies for this to be phoning it in. Well, I know like where, where do you think you're going with it when you don't know what it is that it's going to be?

Like I said, if we show up for terrifier, like people show up for people being dismembered with chainsaws and it made more money than this movie did. Like, what are we doing here? Like audiences will show up. For weird, perverse, subversive. Shit, stop being afraid.

I genuinely feel like if they had made Clayface, if someone had said, okay, James Gunn, make your version of Clayface, it would not have looked anything like this movie. I genuinely don't think this movie would look anything like this. I don't even think this movie would have been made, frankly. Well, it would have had a very different tone because, again, I think he would have leaned into any of the other aspects heavier than Like if it was going to be dark, it would be dark. If it was going to be a funnier take on it, he would do that.

Like he usually knows where he's going with this stuff. And I think that's that's the thing. He's like he's busy running the big picture now. So he's got to hand it off to other people when he's getting to the other non main movies that are getting made. And like he that he just doesn't get to make that call anymore.

And by the time it gets there, it's somebody else is just sort of thrown some other stuff together. And it's again, at times it comes together pretty well, but overall it's still kind of leaves a little to be desired. I think if James Gunn, like you said, had done this now, it would have been something else entirely in a different kind of film. And it's very funny to me. The thing that genuinely cracks me up is this movie gets made because of Mike Flanagan.

And Mike Flanagan's success and like genuine, like think about Mike Flanagan 2021 versus Mike Flanagan now. Like he's drastically in a different world now, like in terms of his visibility, in terms of his success, in terms of his like viability as a director. Recognizability. Like he is a name even to people who didn't know who he was then, you know, he has become such a name in like horror and specifically streaming horror now that like, regular people know that name now and will seek out whatever he's working on. So yeah, he's definitely like the reason this got made.

Horror maestro Mike Flanagan is how they should have sold this movie. And I would have been even more disappointed watching this movie. It's like that Jordan. Peele Twilight Zone. It's like, it's a little bit of a bait and switch.

Like, yeah, I can see the Mike Flanagan here, but I can also see the like, overwhelmingly shitty DC stuff that I really don't like about DC, like that I've never liked about DC. But what's funny is the things I didn't like in Superman and Supergirl are not the things I didn't like in this movie. The things I didn't like in this movie are just indicative of five years ago, like genuinely like five. years ago might not seem like a long time, but in terms of the taste of filmgoers and the way films are being made, if you go from five years before 2021, you're talking really fucking. Different expectations of people. Yeah.

And that's the thing. Like, it's not that long ago that we... we're watching a film like Avengers age of Ultron. Like that's how, you know, that was, that's been in the last like 10, 11 years that we've been watching something like that in terms of like the most traditional, like forward thinking fucking having to be beholden to some bullshit. Nobody wants. And like, we're not, it's not like that anymore.

Like a superhero movie can be self contained even. And, It's yeah. I really wish we could see what this movie looked like in a 2026 version. And it's, I think a shame that this movie doesn't exist in that format, but at the same time, like the version we got. Yeah.

It's interesting. And that's entertaining. Yeah. It's interesting and entertaining, but it could have been so much more and it's not. And I think, you know, it's missed opportunity, but yeah.

Is it better than the last DC thing I saw for sure. Supergirl is just going to be part of one of those things that gets dragged a lot, right? Like it's, you know, it's, I'm not saying it doesn't or does deserve it, but it's just, it was that kind of all over the place. And at least this movie is not that all over the place. Like, yeah, I didn't vibe with it as much as I wanted to, as much as a body horror movie coming out in theaters should be, because again, that's not a thing.

It's just not like, I don't get to go see the new body horror movie every year in theaters. Like it is a real rarity, but you know what? Like if maybe there's another clay face movie and it comes on theaters, I might line up as well. Cause body horror movies don't come around all that often. And again, I like the character as he is in the end of this movie.

So it's like, if, if all we get is just a big clay monster from this point on, I'm fine with that. Cause I like that character in the animated version. So like, if you can, translate that and make it as entertaining as he is in that form in a movie where he also fights Batman. Like, yeah, I'm on board with that. Like, that sounds awesome.

So it's definitely got potential in another version of it. It just doesn't need to be more of this. Like we've seen this, it's done all it can do with this. I think it needs to just be something different when it moves forward. And I'm fine with him just being a big clay monster at this point.

I know that we all think that like, well, nobody knows this character. So we need his origin story. Have we ever thought nobody knows his character? So what the fuck's the point. Of an origin story?

Just give us Clayface. Just give us Clayface as like a giant monster. Like I don't really give a shit about him as a human. And maybe it's cause you know, Thomas Reese Harry's doesn't want to play a giant dude in a fucking monster practical or CGI suit. But, um, okay.

Then this role ain't for you, man. Like, I don't know. It's very funny. Um, he's not that disfigured in this movie. Like even when he's disfigured, he's not really that disfigured.

Like it's just, you know, he's ugly. Sure. But Jesus Christ, like he's fucking dark man's uglier. Dark man's like a mummy, like a skeleton man. Like this is, you know, he's just, you know, I've had my fuck fucking face fucked up.

Okay. Sure. Happens to more people than I think you would think Matt Hagen. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a sad story at that point, but, At a, again, I don't know that it, it just doesn't know where to go unless it heads down the road that it does, which leads to problems. Yeah. And yeah, I, uh, I'm glad we watched it and it's been an interesting year for mainstream horror, but. What a fucking, you know, at least there was no popcorn bucket, I guess. Are you sure?

I don't know. I feel like there's a popcorn bucket for everything. That's true. Actually, no, there is because it's, I was talking about it the other day. It is a, it's shaped like a regular popcorn bucket, but there is a hand coming up out of the bucket.

That's right. There is. Is one, because I saw a picture of it. God damn it. They didn't have it at the theater when I went, but no, I saw a picture of it.

Oh, there are several popcorn buckets. I take that. Of course there is. God damn it. You know what?

I just, you know what? Here, make me a promise that we will at least keep getting popcorn buckets until The Mummy 4 comes out, and I'll be able to buy a popcorn bucket for. The Mummy 4, and then you can stop making them. Then I don't care anymore. I don't know that they're stopping anytime soon because each movie coming out has a more elaborate, crazy bucket.

Like I said, they didn't have that bucket for Clayface when I went. But as I walked past, the only thing I saw was a giant, I'm talking like 16-inch version of Ghostface. Yeah. And I'm like, there isn't even a Ghostface movie out right now. I think Scream is back in theaters for like a Halloween run.

It must be. So all the nerds can have a giant Ghostface. I'm not saying I didn't buy one the first time I did this, because I did. I have the Ghostface one, the original Ghostface one. I did too.

Because I thought it was going to be the only one. Me too. That's the first time I saw one of those like that. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I want a Ghostface one. bust, which is essentially what it is.

So yeah, it's like, I get it. I'm enough of a geek that I want to run out and get that stuff. But I'm just like, then they got so out of control that I'm just like, I can't keep up anymore. I'm not, I'm not going down that road. Just stop.

Just stop making them. Or at least stop expecting me to buy them. I watched a. Guy ranking them on YouTube and there were 85 that came out last year. 85. five fucking crazy.

Jesus Christ. You know, there's a factory in China somewhere that is just fucking just, they're like, we are so glad that people in the United States want a piece of fucking plastic that will just sit in a closet somewhere. Soon we will just be a mountain of plastic popcorn buckets as we disintegrate into the pile. That's right. That will be the world that we live in.

I just want a popcorn bucket for the upcoming film, Ass. And that's all it was for an hour and 45 minutes was just an ass on screen with an ass popcorn bucket. I mean, is this directed by Yoko Ono? Wait a minute. I think this exists.

I guess I'm not surprised that there's a Clayface popcorn bucket. But my point is a different one about popcorn buckets and movies in general. We live in a time now where it's like, you gotta have an angle. You gotta have a reason. You gotta have a thing.

And this movie thing was body horror. And I think it's broadly. Successful for the mainstream body horror crowd, but it's not made for people like yourself and myself who have seen all of the movies that this movie is very clearly inspired by. My hope, hope against hope, is that if you watch this movie, you go watch The Fly, or you go watch The Thing, or you go watch a whole, or, you know, any number of body horror movies. Because those are the movies that this movie.

Is inspired by that are so much better than this movie. And if this is your gateway to that, awesome. But this, for me, is like a I've said this before about things. This is a cul-de-sac in terms of where do you go from here? To answer your question, Brian, nowhere.

Genuinely. Right back the way we came in. Right back at the way we came in. Up to Videodrome. And when you get there, you'll be like, oh, this is what I was looking for.

Too heady. It's too heady. I feel like you watch Videodrome and you're like, where's the dumb shit? And it's like, well, this is not that kind of- That's why. You gotta graduate up there.

You take your substance and you get your steps till you get to that. And then you get all the way up to Videodrome and you're just like, all right, I'm here. Is Videodrome the top? I mean, is that like the top of the mountain? When I saw it, yeah.

I was just kind of, this is what I want. Like, this is, if I want weird- top tier body horror that's my go-to so yeah for me i think it was yeah i. Mean cronenberg you know you can't dethrone the king and cronenberg i think look body horror and you know you you tell me if i'm wrong here and i think this is probably as we kind of bring this episode to a close i think as a body horror fan as i don't want to assume you are but i've seen a lot of them and i consider myself a body horror fan the best ones are done practically You can't really do this shit in CGI. And like, you know, that's great. I do think there was probably some practical effects in this movie, but a lot of it seems like CGI.

And, you know, I get it. Michael Rooker in a giant tentacle suit in Slither looked kind of goofy, but it is still good. But it was real. And it's real. It was tactical.

And this movie didn't have that. And I think that that's, for me, what this movie needed. You know what? I know that this has been really popular. Why not do a 90s, like liminal horror movie with Clayface and have it be, you know, I don't know, like Mimic, like the film Mimic, but with Clayface in it where it's like, we don't know what the villain is and have the villain be removed from everything and have Clayface just be the villain of the movie.

Even go one step further. Maybe you remember this movie. I mean, I know some people do, but... The film The Watcher with Keanu Reeves, make it like that, but with Clayface as a serial killer who can just live forever like tombs from the X-Files. Make it a period piece in the 90s.

Make it a period piece in the 70s or 80s. Why are you taking what is obviously the most obvious way to do this so obvious that. They already did it in the comic book that way? Yeah. And like you said, they did it in the TV show way better because, yeah, they were given plenty of time, even if it was.

Just like the animated version. So that's that's the way to go. If you want to see this, just go watch those episodes. You're all set. You will always be competing with the animated version of Batman, as far as I'm concerned, in terms of actually doing the characters right.

Sure, there are good Batman movies, but the TV show is the quintessential and I think definitive version of Batman, as most people know it, myself included, because I grew up on it, genuinely grew up on it. And it gets every aspect of it. It gets the tone and it gets the city, like the Gotham of it all is like perfect and universal and like everything fits in that world and it just makes sense. but only in that world. Like it exists in its own weird Batman world. And like, that's what you want from a Batman movie.

And like, it gets that perfectly on the animated series. Like nothing really gets to that point. You get probably pretty close with the Tim Burton, which again, it it's inspired by the Tim Burton movie. So it's like, it's what led to that series. But I think it even took it up a notch from the, the Tim Burton.

Cause the Tim Burton would, you know, have moments that don't work, but like, think it comes together so perfectly in that animated series and like so many of the villains are such great sympathetic characters but it again it does it in 22 minutes where they're not the focus of even that entire 22 minutes so like it just gives you the important part of that story that makes them a sympathetic character and And then Batman shows up and they fight at the end, which is what you want. So it's like, these are the things that are kind of missing from this. This is a very long version of that story. And at the end, Batman doesn't show up and punch him in the face. So like, we're still kind of left longing for these things when we get to the end of this movie.

I am a board game guy. And do you know how many fucking versions there are of Batman board games that are based on the Batman animated series? Damn near all of them are based on... Rightfully so. And yeah, exactly.

It's like, you know what that animated series was? It was a vehicle to tell villain stories with Batman in them. Yeah. And you know what? I don't think.

I don't think there is a better character's villains than Batman. Like, yeah, Spider-Mans are fine, but Batman is the mountaintop of villain characters. Like, period. Like, Batman has the best villains. Marvel has the best heroes.

Batman, and Batman specifically, has the best villains of any character. superhero character, period. His are so well-known, so ubiquitous that everybody knows the Joker. I say the Joker, and you have eight different people vying for that role, and two or three of them are genuinely performances that cement themselves as ones that are worth talking about in a long kind of format, but that's all a Batman thing. That's I don't know. I think about so many board games that have come out in the last couple of years that are Batman animated series or things that have come out that are Batman animated series.

They continue. I want to say they continue the Batman animated series story in a comic book, even like that sounds about right. Like it's just, it has a lot of love because it is literally an anthology series with Batman villains that Batman just happens. To be in. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And just because it's a cartoon does not draw away from the level of writing and the quality. Of the acting. Like, it doesn't.

Like, it holds up better than anything else. It does. It almost makes me sad, like, and, you know, not to, again, drag James Gunn any further than we have, but I don't even know if DC really needs live action movies when their cartoon movies are so good. Like, I mean, it's the one thing they consistently did well, yeah. They've been pumping out these cartoon movies like forever now, and they're consistently really well done, and they have really great voice actors, both for the heroes.

And the villains. Like, not saying don't do live action movies, but they haven't really been working out for you in a connected capacity. Maybe just do standalone. Does DC have to be connected? No.

You can actually just be the ones that are doing standalone stuff, which is fine. And, yeah, that's I think if this were a standalone thing, I would be much more interested in seeing where it goes from here. But like you said, given what this is and what's coming, hopefully, maybe theoretically next, I'm not sure I really care because I don't think this has any, like this feels more at odds with what's been established before than Deadpool is with what he is expected to be in, in the MCU. Yeah. Yeah.

And at least his movie told its own story where this feels like it's just set up for somebody else's story that he can then come back and be involved in because now we know the backstory. Whereas Deadpool was his own movie. Like he fully had his own story throughout it. And then you can throw him in wherever you want, but like, it doesn't feel like it's a missing piece of a puzzle. Whereas this is just part of the puzzle that, But it's not the whole thing.

It still needs other aspects for it to work right. Yeah. No, I totally agree. And I wish this movie was more, but I get why it's not. Because at the end of the day, it is a superhero movie.

And you are going to have people that are showing up that have expectations that are not real. going to leave happy if you don't at least somewhat meet those expectations, no matter how kind of pedantic and really unnecessary those expectations are. So, so if you want to hear Brian and I talk about things that we liked, you can listen to us covering the first four episodes of camp crystal Lake, or I guess it's called crystal Lake over at a weirdingwaymedia.com where this show Culture Meltdown, Brian's show, Movie Meltdown, and my show, The Culture Cast, can be found. You're listening to this show either on his feed or on my feed. And there's plenty of shows on his feed that don't have me and plenty of shows on my feed that don't have him, and you know where to find them.

So yeah, weirdingwaymedia.com is where you can go. Don't go to Spreaker. They don't give us enough money for me to pimp them anymore, so I'm not going to. We are hosted on their website, but we don't even have... a need to go to their website anymore. You can go to our website, weirdingwaymedia.com.

Mike made it. It looks great. Listen to our podcast there. If you want to listen on iTunes and Spotify, do it in that order. Like, rate, and review the show on iTunes and Spotify because there's no way to do it on our website.

Just come to our website. That's good enough for us. And yeah, come on back when Brian and I talk about more Crystal Lake because we've got to finish that show. And then beyond that, No more superhero movies before the end of the year, thankfully. So we're kind of done with being in superhero purgatory, which I felt like some years I was in a lot longer than others.

So I'll take it. So, yeah. And as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.