The Toxic Avenger

4 outta 5

The Toxic Avenger is very silly, gross, horrific, messed up, squishy, dark, comedic and worthy of the Toxic Avenger mantle. The original 1984 film is a cult classic that is more of a gory revenge film than a comedy (although it does get incredibly dopey at times), this is more comedic, but it has gooey violence throughout.  This film celebrates its trashiness with such over the top gore that it becomes comedy. Ripping off bad guy heads with a radiation-leaking mop never felt so very righteous.

Janitor Winston (Peter Dinklage) is looking after his stepson, Wade (Jacob Tremblay), after the boy’s mother has passed away. This is proving rather difficult as Winston has been diagnosed with a terminal brain disease. When his work insurance won’t cover the cost of medication, he goes to the head of his company, Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon) and asks for help covering his health care. Bob initially shows compassion, but he jokes about the janitor’s fate with his assistant, Kissy (Julia Davis). This enrages Winston so he steals a bunch of cash and dips his mop in toxic waste (not a euphemism, that gives his mop magic powers). He then runs into a killer monster rock gang, led by Bob’s creepy brother, Fritz (Eljah Wood). They execute Winston and toss him into toxic waste, which revives and mutates him. Now Winston is Toxie, the mutated man looking for revenge and to save the townspeople from Bob’s messy pollution ways. With the assistance of the determined Dougherty (Taylour Paige) Winston has to reconnect with his son and take out Bob’s mutating pollution scheme once and for all.

Dinklage as Winston shows pathos, which is a bit surprising as this is primarily a gore dark comedy. The brief moment when Winston turns criminal and steals the cash, he profusely apologizes to the guard, one of his co-workers. Dinklage does rageful yelling very well, especially after he transforms into Toxie. The body acting of Toxie is by Luisa Guerreiro with Dinklage providing voice over, and it’s flawless. The lip sync is perfect and even the Toxie makeup still looks like Dinklage. The emoting that Guerreiro does, especially in the closeups, is very big, and Dinklage’s vocals add the extra oomph. For such a weird looking creature like Toxie, it comes together awesomely.   

Kevin Bacon as the waste spewing corporate guy manages to be evil and cowardly. Bob is in debt to some really mean criminal folks and he gets all cowardly around them when it seems like they’re going to take him out. But he can be a big tough guy when telling his goons to beat up janitors, or when he bosses his weirdo brother around. There are some developments that Bob goes through in the climax, born out of desperation that the crooks are going to do him in, that makes him an appropriate villain for Toxie to face off against. It seems that Super and The Toxic Avenger both are Troma films that have Kevin Bacon at a mansion brawl with an extreme violence climax, but Super isn’t Troma, despite Troma alum James Gunn writing and directing it. Close enough! Anyway, watch both those movies, they’re great and Bacon is great.

Wood is sort of the secondary villain as he tries to corral the crazy metal band that does evil things at the behest of his brother. The band are a bunch of psychos, shooting Winston in the head when they weren’t supposed to. Wood looks like such a weirdo, all hunched over and hissing, and his developments in the finale are unexpected. Tremblay as the son is all annoyed at being a performer who can’t perform so he takes it out on his stepdad. He freaks out at first seeing Toxie but feels for him by the end. Sure, the son is used as kidnap bait for easy drama, but revenge films usually have a third act loved one kidnapping. The emotional relationship between stepdad and son adds a bit more depth, and a post-credit scene shows how their relationship has evolved by the end. As the evil assistant, Davis’s Kissy sneers with conviction and does some surprising things in the finale to up the stakes. Pagie’s Dougherty is the first person that Toxie confides in, and she is basically around for exposition, but she does have a lot of funny reactions to the general crazy grossness of being around Toxie.

There are some wild twists here, like a moment when one of the rubber chicken head wearing gang members is revealed what is under the mask and it is a truly WTF moment. When Toxie realizes how he can escape from the chains is super gross and funny. There is a moment when Toxie confronts some goons at a fast-food restaurant that recalls a similar moment from the original 1984 film and it is really really gross how Toxie disposes of them. As Toxie’s mop is glowing with toxic waste, whenever he takes someone out with it, it’s messy. The Toxic Avenger is full of jaw-dropping gross out bits and big laughs, like one bit when two goons accidentally shoot each other, or when Toxie tries to explain some of his killings to his son. This movie consistently shocks and entertains for a very gooey gross good time.