The First Rotten ‘Clayface’ Review Just Vanished From Rotten Tomatoes, and Critics Are Fighting Over Why

DC Studios’ body horror experiment has had one of the strangest build-ups of any recent comic book movie. ‘Clayface’ is the studio’s first full-blown horror film, an R-rated take on the Batman villain with Tom Rhys Harries as actor-turned-monster Matt Hagen. The conversation around the ‘Clayface‘ reviews started long before anyone could officially publish one, and it has now boiled over in an odd way.

Warner Bros. lifted the social media embargo on Oct. 13, about 10 days before the Oct. 23 release, which made it one of the earliest in DCU history. The first reactions were largely positive, praising the film as brutal and gory and comparing it to ‘The Fly’ and ‘Darkman.’ The official review embargo, meanwhile, was set for Oct. 21, one day before Thursday previews.

Then a single review threw a wrench into that carefully managed calm. ComicBookMovie’s Josh Wilding posted the first ‘Clayface’ review Monday night, giving it a rotten 2.5 out of 5 and likening the film to a ‘Morbius’ moment for DC. By Tuesday the review had disappeared from Rotten Tomatoes, leaving the movie with no score once again.

Rotten Tomatoes has pulled the first Clayface review. The review went up Monday night from ComicBookMovie’s Josh Wilding. He gave the movie a rotten 2.5 out of 5 and called it: “DC’s Morbius moment.” By Tuesday, the review was gone. Clayface is back to having no Rotten Tomatoes score. Now Wilding is catching heat for supposedly breaking the review embargo. His response? There was no embargo for him to break. Wilding says he paid for a ticket to a public Odeon mystery screening in the UK and had no agreement with Warner Bros. to hold his review. “I paid to watch a film at a public screening and shared my review.” Several critics are backing him up. Their argument is simple: An embargo applies when a critic agrees to one for a studio screening. If you buy your own ticket to a public screening, there is no embargo agreement. Others say Wilding has been around long enough to know when the official embargo lifts and should have waited anyway. Wilding says he spoke with Rotten Tomatoes and that it’s “all good, no drama.” The full review is still live on ComicBookMovie. And he says it will go back up on Rotten Tomatoes once the official embargo lifts Wednesday. So for now, the first rotten Clayface review has vanished. But only temporarily. More: https://t.co/12Cla1vYlR

— Cosmic Book News (@cosmicbooknews) October 20, 2026

Wilding quickly found himself catching heat for supposedly breaking the review embargo. His answer is that there was nothing to break. He says he paid for a ticket to a public Odeon mystery screening in the UK and never agreed with Warner Bros. to hold his review.

Several critics have backed him up, and their argument is simple. An embargo applies when a critic agrees to one for a studio screening, so buying your own ticket to a public showing carries no such agreement.

Others see it differently. They say Wilding has been covering the industry long enough to know when the official embargo lifts, and that he should have waited anyway.

Wilding says he spoke with Rotten Tomatoes and that it’s all good, with no drama. His full review is still live on ComicBookMovie, and he says it will go back up on Rotten Tomatoes once the official embargo lifts Wednesday. That makes the removal look temporary.

The skepticism around the early buzz didn’t start with Wilding’s review. ComicBookMovie’s coverage noted that the first wave of reactions came mostly from fan-oriented websites rather than the Hollywood trades. It also described an early screening attended by the cast and director as the kind of fan and influencer event that tends to produce glowing posts.

That wariness has a reason behind it. ‘Supergirl’ earned a rotten 57% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $126.4 million worldwide against a reported budget of $170 million to $186 million, which made it a box-office bomb. Its first wave of impressions was strongly positive before the full reviews landed far lower.

‘Clayface’ is a very different bet. It reportedly cost $40 million, so it doesn’t need to be a blockbuster to turn a profit. Opening projections have ranged from $23 million to $33 million domestically, although one analysis of presales at a single chain pointed to an opening nearer $20 million, and horror crowds are known for buying tickets late.

Watch the first trailer for #Clayface. The new DC horror film is in theaters October 23. https://t.co/gqrrtJSou5

— Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 (@RottenTomatoes) April 22, 2026

James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, with a story by Flanagan. The cast also includes Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan, and the film is produced by Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn and Peter Safran. It has an R rating in the US and an 18 certificate in the UK for strong bloody violence and injury detail.

The story follows Hagen, a Gotham street kid turned Hollywood leading man whose face is destroyed after a crime boss’s act of revenge. Desperate to fix himself, he turns to scientist Dr. Caitlyn Corr, whose experimental treatment gradually turns his body into clay.

For now, the first rotten ‘Clayface’ review has vanished, but only temporarily. Once the official embargo lifts, the Rotten Tomatoes score will start to fill in, and we’ll find out whether Wilding’s 2.5 out of 5 is an outlier or an early warning for DC’s horror gamble.

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