The Dal review: Clayface and Pulse film reviews

Clayface Review – 5/10

An entire film based on Batman’s 17th most popular supervillain might sound like an idea pitched in a moment of duress during a boardroom brainstorming session. 

Fortunately, Clayface has more ambition than one would expect from a superhero spinoff. Directed by James Watkins, the film strives to be a full-on horror movie. It uses DC Universe characters to tell a story in a different genre. 

Clayface stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, an up-and-coming actor whose career is halted after a mob boss scars his face. 

Distraught, Hagen finds Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a scientist who administers an experimental treatment that returns his face to its former glory and gives him the ability to shapeshift. But with these gifts, Hagen’s grasp on reality slowly slips.

Clayface has obviously had some work done on itself. The film reeks of studio interference — when high-ranking producers come in to mess with a director’s vision. This is abundantly clear in the film’s editing. 

It often jarringly cuts to scenes that exist solely to make sure the audience knows exactly what’s happening at every moment.

Whether the screenplay got the same treatment as the edit is uncertain, but it could’ve used another polish. Clayface’s dialogue is almost exclusively composed of clichés.

Hagen and Corr’s interactions are particularly painful. Harries and Ackie are both talented actors, but they’re clearly struggling with what they’ve been given. Their dialogue consists of a tired call-and-response formula that never remotely comes across as if it could’ve been spoken between two living, breathing people.

Clayface has a rough first half, but the climax is fun enough to keep me from wondering if I could still refund my ticket. The last half hour or so leans into its horror influences, and displays some grisly uses of Hagen’s powers. 

Clayface feels unfinished, but the film’s potential as a horror movie shines through every so often, and so do its rough edges. In the state that it’s in, it serves best as a single step in a long journey to let comic book movies have more artistic freedom. Better luck next time.

Clayface is available in theatres everywhere. 

Pulse Review – 8/10

There are not many great movies about the internet. It’s hard to capture such a quickly evolving technology on screen in a way that’s relevant — especially considering the amount of time it takes for a movie release after its script is written.

Fortunately, Pulse — Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 Japanese horror film — is a great movie about the internet and the profound loneliness that it can instill in its users. 

Pulse is set in downtown Tokyo in the early 2000s. The film follows undergraduate student Ryosuke Kawashima (Haruhiko Katô) and two plant-shop workers, Michi Kudo (Kumiko Asō) and Junko Sasano (Kurume Arisaka), as they begin to witness ghosts appear.

These ghosts lurk in the shadows of Tokyo’s urban underbelly and on the film’s many computer screens. Their appearance is a bad omen for the characters’ lives.

Although Pulse’s narrative remains ambiguous throughout, one thing becomes clear: the internet has opened a supernatural portal to the afterlife. Logging on soon becomes a séance with sinister ghosts.

Fusing the internet into a ghost story is a brilliant premise. Kurosawa heightens the existential dread of living online from grim to literally maddening. Pulse’s ghosts are hollow shells. They have found a fitting place to house their emptiness, corrupting the binary code of the digital and real world.

Pulse is just as terrifying as it is thematically rich. Kurosawa takes a slow but sure approach to instilling fear. The film’s atmosphere and editing help set in the terror in subtly, forming a tension that never resolves with a jump scare.

Pulse is an utterly unique horror film. It’s become a cult classic in the years since its release, and it’s no wonder why. Using ghosts as a metaphor, Kurosawa portrays the internet as a malevolent force in a way that remains relevant today. 

Pulse is available to stream on the Criterion Channel.