It took the Marvel Cinematic Universe over a decade to release its first full-fledged horror project (Werewolf by Night), but James Gunn doesn’t run DC Studios like Kevin Feige does Marvel. He’s giving the audience an R-rated body horror feature as the third film entry in the DC Universe, whether they want it or not. With Gunn repeatedly stating that he’s down to greenlight any DC-related project so long as the script and talent attached are awesome — after all, that’s the only reason we’re getting Clayface before Batman in the DCU — we dreamed up some character/director combos that we feel are ripe for exploration at DC Studios, especially as a horror feature.
So, with that said, here are 10 DCU Horror Movies We Want After Clayface.
1. Neil Marshall’s Killer Croc
Few filmmakers blend claustrophobic horror and muscular action as effectively as Neil Marshall does. Dog Soldiers and The Descent both prove he understands how to trap a group of people in an environment that’s as much an enemy as the monster hunting them. Now imagine that approach applied to Gotham’s underbelly — a labyrinth of flooded tunnels, rusted pipes, and suffocating darkness where something primal lurks just beyond the flashlight beam.
The film could play like Alien by way of The Descent: a search-and-rescue squad (maybe GCPD or a private military cleanup team hired by Wayne Enterprises) sent into the sewers after a series of grisly disappearances. They think they’re dealing with a wild animal or a deranged homeless killer, but Marshall would slowly reveal something far worse — a mutation of man and beast born from Gotham’s decay. Just as Alien made space terrifying and The Descent made caves hellish, Marshall could make Gotham’s sewers a place of primal fear. His command of atmosphere, gore, and tight ensemble storytelling makes him the ideal director to turn Killer Croc from a punchline into a horror icon.
–Sailor Monsoon
2. Jeremy Saulnier’s Victor Zsasz
Let me set the scene. 1970s Gotham. A body is found washed up on the port. Young. Female. Two days later, another body. Old. Black. Killed the same, but the second has one noticeable difference — two identical-sized marks on his back, where the girl only had one. There’s a serial killer loose in Gotham, and with no “type,” everyone is in danger. Enter an experienced Dirty Harry-like inspector for the GCPD, who is put on the job to take the serial killer, later revealed as Victor Zsasz, down.
Victor Zsasz would be a far more subdued type of horror film than Clayface, with the scares coming more from how Zsasz mutilates his body, adding a new notch with each kill. Jeremy Saulnier has shown he is capable of working both within the horror and action genres with his past filmography, and he’s set to bring both together with his next film, October. I’d love to see him leave his mark on the DCU, and Victor Zsasz is the type of character that I feel Saulnier could really do a great character exploration on.
–Marmaduke Karlston
3. Coralie Fargeat’s Zatanna
Zatanna Zatarra is a well known DC magical superheroine who has appeared on the small screen in primarily animated releases, though she was also played by Serinda Swan for a few appearances on Smallville. The character has always been a kind of upbeat one, and her appearance has often been that of a cheesecake stage magician. She does have some darkness in her history, however, and that’s the ore we’d be hoping to mine for a Zatanna film.
Coralie Fargeat has proven herself more than capable of taking the male gaze and transforming it into something both powerful and horrible, with films like The Substance and Revenge. Having her take Zatanna and putting her through the wringer, only to emerge victorious, seems like a no-brainer.
In the comics, Zatanna works as a stage magician while also using her magic to help others, and I’d keep this aspect of her identity (and can imagine some decent set pieces as she uses her abilities to do real magic to enhance her stage performance). When other magicians and occult people in her orbit start to disappear – including her father, Zatarra – Zatanna would have to investigate. This would lead to an occult underground that is trying to bring back the original Darkness, the one that God banished when he first created light. This would be a threat far grimmer than Zatarra’s usual foes, with creatures out of nightmare and real death close behind. I’d love to see Zatanna’s somewhat cutesy backwards spellcasting become something darker as she needs to get serious. “Nrut edisni tuo dna edolpxe!” is a nasty way to go, and Fargeat knows how to handle the gore.
Not everyone is going to survive, and we might go through a few of DC’s lesser-known magic characters before the film is through (sorry Nick Necro). Zatanna will prevail, of course, changed but still whole. Until John Constantine shows up at her door in a mid-credits stinger.
–Bob Cram
4. Damien Leone’s Dogwelder
Dogwelder, a vigilante who literally welds dead dogs to criminals’ faces, is the kind of concept that teeters between disgusting and hilarious. It’s an insane character that should never get a movie, but that’s exactly the type of character Gunn loves giving the spotlight to. If he truly wants to separate his DC Universe from Marvel, he needs to go after projects they would never do, and this is the perfect one. Make it cheap, make it hilariously over the top, and make it funny, and you’ve got a future cult classic on your hands.
Plus, if you hire Damien Leone, not only do you have a director with a built-in audience, you have one that already knows how to balance the jaw-droppingly grotesque and laugh-out-loud absurd. Terrifier proved he’s a master of practical gore and midnight-movie depravity, but underneath all the blood and bile is a twisted sense of humor that knows exactly how far to push before the audience taps out—or cheers. Leone could treat it like a grindhouse superhero origin story that’s equal parts The Toxic Avenger and Maniac. He’d lean into the insanity, deliver buckets of splatter, and somehow make you root for the most repulsive “hero” ever put on screen.
–Sailor Monsoon
5. JT Mollner’s Long Holiday
If Victor Zsasz is the DCU’s Dirty Harry, then Long Holiday will be its take on The Silence of the Lambs. Pulling inspiration from Batman: The Long Halloween, Long Holiday would be set before Batman arrives in Gotham, following a 40-year-old James Gordon as he deals with a new serial killer, nicknamed Holiday, who only kills on major holidays. There was a killer in the past with the same M.O., Calendar Man, who agrees to offer insight into Gordon’s search for Holiday, but he will only speak to new recruit, Renee Montoya.
Now, JT Mollner has proven that he is no one-trick pony, but I’ll ask you to indulge me nevertheless. Strange Darling was a story in six chapters told in nonlinear order. I’m treating Long Holiday as a spiritual follow-up, with the movie told across six holidays, each one focusing on a different moment in the hunt for Holiday. The first holiday will show the killing, the next holiday will focus on the crime scene investigation, the third is Montoya with Calendar Man, the fourth… you get the picture. Details about the other killings and meetings with Calendar Man would be revealed through conversations, with everything coming together on the sixth holiday, Oct. 31, Halloween, with the movie’s closing moments taking place in the early hours of Nov. 1, after Holiday has been unmasked and captured.
–Marmaduke Karlston
6. Robert Eggers’ Etrigan the Demon
Etrigan the Demon is a classic DC character from the mind of the great Jack Kirby. While he’s appeared in various animated versions, there’s been no live action adaptation and with his complicated publication history, it’s no wonder. How do you untangle the various incarnations of a prince of hell?
For me, I’d ditch all of the recent history and combine the classic Kirby incarnation with Matt Wagner’s seminal Demon comic miniseries from 1986 – mixing a medieval monster film with a modern possession flick. I think Robert Eggers would be the perfect director for this film, as it would require a deft hand with a dark, historical look and an eye for the madness that lurks behind the eyes of men.
Jason Blood, ridden by the demon Etrigan since Arthurian times, is a burnt-out husk of a man. A collector of occult artifacts and esoteric information, but with few ties to the world and fewer friends. One of these few, Glenda, finds what she thinks is a way to rid Jason of Etrigan once and for all, and the two start a quest to find the information they need. The film would switch back and forth between the modern day and the first years of Etrigan and Jason’s “partnership.” Illustrating just how horrifying and terrible it is to be host to a demon, while Etrigan “helps” and terrifies Glenda (when he needs to appear) in the modern day. Eventually, after much trial, Glenda and Jason would succeed in separating Jason from Etrigan – with the demon returned to hell and Jason finally able to live a normal life… Or so they believe. In the darkness behind them the glowing eyes and smile of Etrigan appears as he utters the classic line, “Gone, gone, o form of man, and rise the demon, Etrigan.”
–Bob Cram
7. Tarsem Singh’s The Mad Hatter
Tarsem Singh would be perfect to direct a horror film about the Mad Hatter because no one visualizes madness quite like he does. His films — The Cell, The Fall, Mirror Mirror — are dreamlike nightmares where reality dissolves into ornate, hallucinatory imagery. That aesthetic is tailor-made for Jervis Tetch: a man lost in his own Wonderland of obsession and delusion. Singh could turn Gotham into a fever dream of color and decay, where every frame feels like a cracked teacup in a madhouse ballroom. He wouldn’t just show Tetch’s descent into insanity — he’d make you feel it, blurring the line between fantasy and psychosis until the audience can’t tell which side of the mirror they’re on.
Tetch is a C-list villain at best. There have been a million Batman movies and, outside of a quick cameo in The Lego Batman Movie, he’s never appeared in any of them. He’s never been given a great story or memorable appearance in anything to bump him up from a minor threat to an unforgettable monster. Since he’s no one’s favorite villain, there’s no need to be precious with his origin or modus operandi. Make him an insane child killer who targets girls who remind him of Alice, kidnaps them, and then makes them participate in a weird Wonderland-themed escape room while out of their minds on hallucinogenic drugs. It could be a race against time where a detective is trying to find him before she gets to the end of his sick game. Singh could give us a David Fincher-level detective mystery with the twisted visuals of Alice in Wonderland. Se7en meets Lewis Carroll with a Batman villain as the lead.
–Sailor Monsoon
8. James Wan & Leigh Whannell’s Kabuki Twins
While I didn’t radically reinvent Victor Zsasz and Calendar Man (or Holiday) for my previous two pitches, that’s going to change with Kabuki Twins. Now, if you weren’t a kid in the early 2000s, there’s a good chance you might not even know who the Kabuki Twins are. Well, they were introduced in the animated series, The Batman, as the Penguin’s mute henchwomen. They are highly skilled martial arts combatants with long razor blades at the tips of their fingers. They wear wine red-colored bodysuits and white masks. I mean, look at them and tell me they don’t seem like the next big horror icons.
James Wan and Leigh Whannell are masters of the horror genre, and together, I know they can develop an origin story for the Kabuki Twins that will turn them into a household name. Not a whole lot was revealed about the twins in The Batman, meaning Wan and Whannell will be able to reinvent them as they see fit. Of course, what the cartoon did reveal is that they came into the Penguin’s employ during a sojourn in the Orient, which is exactly where I’d end the movie. After all the killings are done, a post-credits scene will introduce the DCU’s Penguin, leaving the door open for the Kabuki Twins to return in a future Batman movie.
–Marmaduke Karlston
9. Julia Ducournau’s Arcane
Anton Arcane is a villain from the Swamp Thing comic book series and has appeared on screens big and small a couple of times, most memorably played by Louis Jordan in Wes Craven’s 1982 Swamp Thing movie (and its sequel). I never really felt like he got his due outside of the comic pages, though. He’s a terrifying, evil man who uses both science and sorcery to create servant creatures called un-men, kill and resurrect his own brother as a patchwork man, and torment his niece, Abigail, in horrifying ways before condemning her soul to hell. As time went on, he replaced bits and pieces of himself with machinery, insect part,s and artificial limbs. Even death couldn’t stop him, and he’s escaped hell at least once, bringing some of the worst of that dark place with him.
Abigail Arcane is a strong woman who manages to survive all those horrible things and still comes out of it as a tough but caring person, marked by her experiences with white hair with only streaks of black through it. In the comic, she falls in love with the Swamp Thing and they have a daughter. (Well, depending on what continuity you’re following.) Her screen appearances have been more convoluted, usually appearing as Abby Holland as in Return of the Swamp Thing (Heather Locklear) and the 2019 Swamp Thing TV show (Crystal Reed). She was played by Kary Wuhrer in the 1990s Swamp Thing TV Show.
Julia Ducournau has proven herself adept at body horror and twisted, but affecting emotional storylines, with films like Raw and Titane. I’d love to see a story (or ideally a trilogy) about the struggle between Abby and Anton and his descent into madness and villainy. He would succeed at keeping her body alive (for some nefarious purpose), but damning her soul to hell in the first movie. The second would focus on Abigail’s attempt to flee hell (as someone unrighteously damned) and finding an unlikely ally in Etrigan, the Demon. The final film would involve her return to the land of the living and a final, epic confrontation with her uncle, now grown gross and distorted in his pursuit of immortality. I think Ducournau has the chops to manage the horror AND the twisted family dynamics, and I’d just love to see a real horror epic. Something to put the GRAND in grand guignol.
–Bob Cram
10. Guillermo del Toro’s Man-Bat/Solomon Grundy
Guillermo del Toro should be handed a Batman trilogy outright. There is no director working today who is more aesthetically perfect for that franchise. He proved he could do comic book action with Blade II and Hellboy. He showed he was a master at set design (which is something you need to bring Gotham to life) with Crimson Peak and Nightmare Alley. And he clearly loves merging reality with monsters based on literally everything he’s ever made. He was born to play in Kane and Finger’s sandbox, but he’s also cursed. For every movie he’s made, ten others go by the wayside. A trilogy would somehow be impossible, so instead, why not have him do a side story set in that universe involving the two most tragic monsters within it — Man-Bat and Solomon Grundy.
Both let him scratch a specific itch he loves, while also creating a unique pair never seen in the comics. Man-Bat gives him the tortured scientist narrative he’s mastered since Cronos and The Shape of Water, while Grundy lets him explore his obsession with the undead as metaphors for loneliness and damnation. Picture it: a crumbling Southern Gothic swamp, moonlight reflecting off ruined gravestones, Grundy shambling through the fog as Man-Bat screams overhead. Both monsters are bound by tragedy, hunted by man, and misunderstood by the world. It’s an unexpected pairing, but one that should’ve happened years ago. In anyone else’s hands, it’d be a monster mash. In Del Toro’s, it’d be a haunted fairytale about what it means to lose your humanity twice.
–Sailor Monsoon
Are you ready for the DCU’s first horror movie? Which one of our above pitches would you most like to see get made after Clayface?