Clayface is the newest DC Universe (DCU) movie, and instead of a superhero or even a supervillain movie, it is a straight horror film for the studio. The movie follows Batman’s comic book villain who can change his shape and even make himself look like any other person at will. However, the movie gives a different origin story for the character, and it makes him a sympathetic victim at first before he eventually steps over the line and becomes the villain comic book readers know him to be. Along the way, there are plenty of scary moments, and it might be one of the most frightening comic book movies ever made.
While Clayface is a scary film, it isn’t the first comic book movie that actually plays out like a horror film. Comic book-based horror movies have been around for a very long time, and some of these movies match up well with any other horror movie in the genre. There is also a great horror film that remains one of the most iconic 1990s Marvel Comics movies.
Hellboy was a Guillermo del Toro movie based on the comic books by Mike Mignola, which were horror comics published under the Dark Horse Comics banner. The story was straight out of a demonic horror story, with a group of soldiers in World War II discovering a young demon child who had been summoned from Hell to Earth by Nazi occultists. However, the soldiers were from Allied forces, allowing him to grow up and become a hero and an agent working for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD).
The movie told the same story, starting from when he was found and then flashing forward to where he is a wisecracking demon hunter who knows he has a tragic past and future ahead of him. The movie was shot as a horror film, with Hellboy and his allies battling the evil Grigori Rasputin, a demonic sorcerer who was only helping the Nazis in World War II because he wanted to start the apocalypse. There are plenty of scary moments in the movie, and it remains one of the most beloved cult-favorite comic book movies of the 2000s, and fans are still calling for a third movie to finish Del Toro’s story.
Constantine received quick backlash from fans of the comics when it was released. While receiving mixed to negative reviews from critics, it did well at the box office. But fan backlash about Keanu Reeves playing John Constantine doomed it in the realm of fandom. The idea of the laid-back, cool Reeves playing the blond-haired, dark, and morbid Constantine just didn’t feel right, and it took years for fans to finally realize the movie was better than its reputation suggests. While Matt Ryan was a perfect Constantine years later, Reeves’ movie was really good as well.
It was also a solid horror movie in its own right. While Reeves might have been miscast as John Constantine, he gave it his all, and the story went to some dark places, with the mystical detective battling the forces of evil, both angelic (Tilda Swinton as Gabriel) and demonic (Peter Stormare as Lucifer). It was a great apocalyptic horror movie with some solid scares and some fun CGI in the battles with demonic forces. There has been a Constantine sequel rumored, and enough time has passed for fans to finally want to see it again.
The first great Marvel Comics movie came out in the 1990s with Blade. After years of flops and embarrassing releases, from Howard the Duck and The Punisher to Captain America and The Fantastic Four, Marvel finally got it right by ignoring the superheroes and going with a horror movie instead. Blade was never really sold as a Marvel Comics movie, and many non-comic book fans might never have known that it was based on a superhero at all.
Instead, the Wesley Snipes movie was sold as a straight horror movie, and it went all in on the horror aspects of the story. Blade is a vampire hunter, and the blood flew freely in this movie, while the vampires were actually frightening. The final fight between Blade and Deacon Frost ended in one of the most disgusting moments shown in any Marvel film, and this was proof that Marvel could make a horror movie and fans would buy into it completely.
The Crow remains one of the best comic book movies ever made, and it is only based on a superhero in the loosest manner. The movie is a dystopian tale about a city where crime runs rampant, no one is safe, and the police are mostly worthless to stop it. The story begins when a group of thugs attacks a young couple in love and murders Eric Draven after forcing him to watch them sexually assault his fiancée. Soon, a crow brings Eric back from the dead, and his only goal is to kill everyone responsible.
Brandon Lee was spectacular in The Crow, which makes the fact that he was killed in an accident while making the movie even more tragic. This was a violent and hyperkinetically designed film that has one of the best soundtracks of any movie from the 1990s. There were several sequels, and they were all mostly terrible, showing how great Lee was in the role, and how great the movie was as a nightmare-fueled comic book adaptation.
The scariest horror movie ever based on a comic book was released in 2007. 30 Days of Night was based on the comic book series by Steve Niles, who also co-wrote the screenplay. It was also directed by David Slade, who went on to direct the only Twilight movie that had actual scary moments of horror in it. This movie took place in a town in Alaska that experiences regular 30-day polar nights, during which the sun never comes up for the full month.
That makes it the perfect location for a vampire movie. Josh Hartnett is the police officer in the town who has to deal with the vampire onslaught, knowing that daytime will never arrive to keep anyone safe. The comics were some of the scariest in the medium, and the movie was terrifying in its own right, with some truly disgusting moments, both in the appearance of the vampires and the death scenes, which played out in a bloody manner. There was also a sequel and two TV miniseries, but the original remains the best, and a scary comic book horror movie in its own right.
What is your favorite comic book-based horror movie? If we missed your favorite, let us know in the comments below.
