THE TOXIC AVENGER (1984): A Film Gutter Review by Alex Davis Dir. Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman, 82 mins Wait a minute, Alex, what’s this all about? Tro-March was months ago! Yes, of course, that is true, but taking on a full month of Tro-madness – and we saw the good, the bad and the ugly there! – did make me think that maybe I’ve not really given enough coverage to one of the leading purveyors of cult and often B-movie horror. So I’m going to make a point to stop by Tromaville a little more often as we go forward, without necessarily making it any kind of regular feature. I’m sure there are many fans out there, and maybe some curious to find out more, so I hope you’ll enjoy my occasional dips into this particular pool. And what better place to possibly begin than with one of the studio’s most popular movies, The Toxic Avenger? I think I saw this in the dim and distant past, but honestly I have very little recollection of it. However, what it did also jolt loose was a memory of the Toxic Crusaders cartoon that I watched as a youngster. Little did I know back then exactly what the source material was, of course, but what a choice as the inspiration for a piece of Saturday morning kids’ entertainment. I’m waiting for the Freddie Kreuger or Michael Myers cartoon in years to come… Anyway, back to the matter in hand, The Toxic Avenger follows the story of geek Melvin, who works cleaning the local swimming pool and finds himself square in the crosshairs of the local bullies and jocks. But when a prank backfires, Melvin is covered in toxic waste – and lo, The Toxic Avenger is born! Determined to put the wrongs of Tromaville right, Melvin now spends his time catching criminals and taking on the corrupt upper echelons of the town. He also finds himself in the middle of a love story with Sara, a blind woman that he saves from a robbery. But the mayor and the local army don’t want this ‘monster’ around, despite his many good deeds, which leads to an epic final confrontation. What can I say about this one? It’s Troma, so you sort of know what to expect, and this one has many of the hallmarks of the studio – it’s silly, it’s overblown, there’s a lot of sex and nudity and the characters lean into the stereotypes of the time. I want to say this one is harmless fun, but I don’t think this one has aged terribly well, and some of the language and terminology in here did make me wince. The costume for Toxie himself is pretty laughable, even for early 80s Troma, and while there are a few funny moments some of it just winds up feeling a bit too try-hard to really land as the directors might have pictured. This one was obviously a success in its own way, spawning no less than three sequels, not to mention the cartoon and even a couple of video games (do I need to do a Game Gutter or something?) but for me it doesn’t rank as my favourite Troma offering. It might be the one that launched the studio into the big time in relative terms – it certainly got a much larger following than any of their late 70s and early 80s titles – but there’s not much here that will live long in the memory for me personally. Suppose that explains why I forgot most of it from the first watch… RATING: 3/10. To be honest, if you loved lots of other Troma films, it’s going to be good you’ll get something out of this one. But this one never quite clicked with me, and on the rewatch it feels like time has rather moved on past poor old Toxie and the rest of the crew here. Some horror movies (and even horror comedies) can age like a fine wine, but this one feels as though it’s turned a little toxic instead. There’s better Troma out there for me, even though the company might not exist in the form we know it without this one’s success, so I suppose that has to count something towards this one! TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE YEYE’S GIRL BY OHNE RE [AN EXCERPT FROM ZHIGUAI: CHINESE TRUE TALES OF THE PARANORMAL AND GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX]; TRANSLATED BY YI IZZY YU AND JOHN YU BRANSCUM the heart and soul of horror movie review websites |
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