Since 1974, Troma Entertainment has enjoyed its position as the longest running independent film studio in the world, having been responsible for either the production or distribution of over 1,000 films. Nominally a horror-comedy studio, Troma’s collection largely consists of splattery B-movies and farcical send-ups of genre films of the ’50s, typically making a mockery of more serious-minded fare. In other words, isruption is the name of the game, as the Lloyd Kaufman/Michael Herz-founded studio positively revels in exercises of bad taste, proudly wearing their “not for everyone” philosophy like a badge of honor. And the crown jewel in their catalogue is arguably 1984’s The Toxic Avenger, which tells the tale of Toxie, a once bullied and lowly teenager turned mutated crime fighter and superhero. The cult film wound up spawning three sequels, an animated children’s (!) television series, a run of print comics, two video games, and even a rock musical.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Troma’s founding and the 40th anniversary of the original Avenger, we now have a new The Toxic Avenger, which is a remake of the original film. Taking over control is writer/director Macon Blair, a frequent collaborator of fellow director Jeremy Saulnier and whose impressive debut, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, took the top prize at Sundance in 2017. With his second feature, Blair looks to breathe new life into Toxie, pledging his allegiance to Troma while hoping to welcome a new audience to the franchise. The good news is he’s largely successful, as The Toxic Avenger retains much of the series’ vaunted goofy gags and gory death sequences. Some of the magic is admittedly lost in the process, as this iteration of The Toxic Avenger lacks the memorable charm of the 1984 original, but Blair generally hits more often than he misses, maintaining the Troma spirit, if not exactly the form.
Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) is a hopeless janitor, dutifully reporting for work as a “hygiene specialist” at BTH, the city’s chemical company run by corrupt CEO Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon). Winston is also a widower, doing his best to raise stepson Wade (Jacob Tremblay), a moody teenager who wants nothing to do with the man, focusing his own efforts on perfecting his “property movement piece” for his school’s talent show. While already facing a financial crisis, Winston’s life is further flipped upside down by the revelation that he has a debilitating brain disease — the name of which is obscured by the noisy jackhammering of a nearby construction site, the first of many of these gags — giving him roughly six months to live, unless he can afford the medication to keep him alive. Having been screwed over by his company’s health plan, Winston pleas to Bob directly, who cruelly rebuffs the dying man’s request. And so, unwilling to leave Wade parentless and destitute, Winston takes it upon himself to break into his own workplace and rob the company vault.
Meanwhile, BTH whistleblower J.J. Doherty (Taylour Paige) leaks news of the company’s malpractice to an investigative reporter, revealing that they have been habitually dumping toxic chemicals into the nearby lake. Furious at this betrayal, Bob sends his brother Fritz (Elijah Wood, wearing prosthetics to make him look like Tim Burton’s Penguin) after J.J., with Fritz recruiting the Killer Nutz, a nu-metal death band with a knack for parkour and murder, to take J.J. down. When Winston and J.J.’s paths intersect, Winston is mistakenly shot and dumped into a vat of toxic chemicals by the Nutz, transforming him from meek-minded custodian to the Toxic Avenger, a grotesque-looking figure of justice wielding a super powerful mop. Aligning with J.J., the Toxic Avenger sets out to get his revenge and bring BTH down, securing a better future for both the town and his son.
Winston is a fundamentally decent guy; he’s just been dealt a terrible hand in life. An early scene cements his status as a virtuous individual, in which he saves his landlord’s feline companion from being turned into roadkill, causing one passerby to exclaim “That motherfucker just saved the cat!” In case anyone was still wondering if they should be taking The Toxic Avenger seriously, the film is best categorized as full-fledged, live-action cartoon, with much of its incident taking place in locations named either “Ye Olde Shithead District” or “Yonder Spooky Woods.” Blair’s film carefully establishes the pathetic circumstances of Winston’s world before his bodily alteration, underlining details like that fact that he is unable to even make a decent breakfast for Wade. His medical prognosis at last forces him into outright desperation, hoping to make things right for his stepson, one way or another. But time is also spent during this section with Bob, who is depicted as a Bryan Johnson-esque ghoul residing at “Chüdhaven,” a manor where he undergoes life-extending procedures like having his blood cycled out with bags of gorilla blood. And so later, though callous and dismissive of the Avenger, Bob sees potential in Winston’s newfound regenerative properties, hoping to apprehend his new enemy and exploit him for his own personal gain.
Once Winston realizes his new grotesque superhero self, The Toxic Avengers begins hitting in earnest the bloody beats that fans of the original may be familiar with. Now sporting super-strength, near invulnerability, and a mop drenched in toxic goo, the Avenger becomes something of a town vigilante, stopping crime in its tracks through gruesome acts of disemboweling, dismemberment, and even an instance of ripping one poor bastard’s intestines out of his rectum. By hand. Blair is clearly a kid in a sandbox here, keeping the overlords at Troma proud with practical bloody effects and endless bouts of silliness. One particular example of the latter: when Winston’s new form is witnessed by townsfolk, they are incensed and repulsed, leading them to debate if they should form a mob, which then cues a pickup truck’s arrival with a bed full of angry citizens wielding torches and pitch forks. Along with the recently rebooted The Naked Gun, it’s nice to see some ZAZ-style gags gracing theater screens again, and perhaps even signaling a shift in en vogue comedy. Toxie is also a strong visual creation (performer Luisa Guerreiro is in the actual suit, while Dinklage provides ADR’d dialogue), though one can’t help but wonder if it’s in the digital gloss of modern filmmaking or the smoothing of cracks through CGI that his reign of terror does not quite feel as potent in this iteration as it did in 1984.
Still, we’re lucky there’s a final product to behold at all. Announced in 2019 and shot in 2021, the film premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2023, screened at a few more festivals, and then… nothing. The film instead fell into a post-fest limbo as every distributor seemingly refused to touch it. Deemed “unreleasable,” likely due to its content (which itself is a joke, as much of what’s shown here is no worse than your typical horror film), the future remained uncertain for Blair’s project, potentially on the path to becoming lost media. Thankfully, 2025’s The Toxic Avenger has been saved and made available for all to see, should one be willing to venture down its gloopy path. Again, it really can’t be overstated how much this will not be in line with everyone’s tastes: it’s deliberately juvenile and designed to be off-putting to those not already dialed in to Troma’s warped wavelength. But for viewers willing to invest time in film where a man’s jaw is swiped clean off his face by the swift blow of a toxic-powered mop, take note: The Toxic Avenger could be your film of the year.
DIRECTOR: Macon Blair; CAST: Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon, Taylour Paige, Jacob Tremblay; DISTRIBUTOR: Cineverse; IN THEATERS: August 29; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 42 min.
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