If you grew up in the ’90s with unrestricted access to television, chances are you’re familiar with (or even fanatical about) bygone programming blocks like USA’s Up All Night, Reel Wild Cinema, and Joe Bob’s Drive-In. Late at night, the likes of Rhonda Shear, Sandra Bernhard, and Joe Bob Briggs would appear on TV to present movies with wild titles and even wilder premises, with the occasional Friday the 13th or Sixteen Candles thrown in for good measure. Cheerleader Camp, Return of the Living Dead, Psycho III, It’s Alive—along with countless ski- and bikini-themed comedies about horny coeds—were in heavy rotation, luring genre-curious indoor kids and splatter-loving cinephiles alike. If your parents wouldn’t let you rent one of these on VHS, you could find something similar or even better if you stayed up past your bedtime, which is how I first saw The Toxic Avenger, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s gross-out horror comedy about a scrawny nerd who becomes a hideous hero after falling into a vat of toxic goo. Nearly 40 years later, as corporate capitalism rides another crest, Toxie has risen once more to defend the defenseless against greed, corruption, and shitty music.
2023’s Toxic Avenger may look quite different from its predecessor, but the slimy, scrappy spirit of Troma Entertainment remains intact in Macon Blair’s relatively friendlier take on the cult classic. Peter Dinklage stars as Winston Gooze, a janitor who works for the corrupt conglomerate BT Healthstyle in St. Roma’s Village (the nomenclature alone is a litmus test for whether or not you’ll like what this movie is selling). Winston is a financially struggling widower whose wife died of cancer, leaving him to raise his anxious teen stepson Wade, played by Jacob Tremblay (who has grown an entire four feet since you saw him last). When Winston learns that he has a fatal disease that will kill him unless he undertakes a pricey new treatment, he seeks out his corporate overlord to ask for help. That’d be Kevin Bacon, making a meal of his role as Bob Garbinger, the callous head of BTH.
Rejected by Garbinger and saddled with mounting debt, Winston attempts to rob BTH. During a run-in with Garbinger’s goons, the Killer Nutz—a music group evocative of turn-of-the-millennium nu metal acts—Winston finds himself in a pool of toxic waste, transformed into a bulbous mutant with the help of several pounds of prosthetics. With a hazardous goo-soaked mop in tow, Winston sets about righting the wrongs of BTH. Kind of. Our reluctant hero isn’t remorseful about attacking bad guys, but at least he feels a little guilty when he punches through someone’s entire head with a mop. For the old school gorehounds, the effects are a combination of cartoonish prosthetics and even more cartoonish CGI, which only enhances The Toxic Avenger‘s ’90s vibe.
Blair wisely omits some of the less pleasant exploitation tropes, instead focusing on Winston’s humanity while heightening the splatstick comedy of old Troma. Characters are reimagined and recontextualized to better suit this updated narrative, which replaces a gang of drug dealers with a pharmaceutical industry that makes poor people sick with its toxic waste, and then preys on their desperation by hawking bogus curatives that keep them sick.
Most of these attempts are successful. In 1984’s The Toxic Avenger, the character Sarah is a blind woman who is nearly sexually assaulted by gang members after they murder her guide dog. She’s rescued by protagonist Melvin, subsequently and rather senselessly becoming his love interest. In Blair’s Toxic Avenger, Sarah is still a blind woman, this time played by blind actress Margo Cargill in a small but eventually significant role. She’s capable of standing up for herself before Winston shows up with his radioactive mop to take out the trash.
Blair adds new characters, too, like Winston’s stepson Wade. Tremblay uses his awkward teen stage to great effect, his more nuanced humor a perfect foil for Winston’s absurd antics. Another excellent addition is Zola‘s Taylour Paige as J.J. Doherty, a corporate whistleblower who grew up near the town’s poisoned river and is determined to take down BTH. Though less successful as a character, Paige has an effortless rapport with Dinklage, and the two have great comedic timing that lends itself well to a third-act escape scene. There’s also Elijah Wood, who previously starred in Blair’s I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, as Fritz Garbinger, Bob’s little brother. The younger Garbinger is a sickly, hunchbacked, greasy-haired RiffRaff type, relentlessly put-upon by his older, hunkier bro—which tips you off to his inevitable hero turn.
That’s the thing: The Toxic Avenger is exactly as advertised. It does what it says on the tin. It’s comically violent, absurdly gory, and extremely silly. But it’s also a timely “eat the rich” story infused with an earnest working class perspective. (One of my favorite bits in the movie involves colloquialisms for local haunts, like “Yonder Spooky Woods,” where Winston meets a hermit with questionable medical skills.) Blair succeeds in doing what studios have been after for decades—creating a surprisingly grounded and recognizable story in a ridiculous world that more closely resembles comics—without the cumbersome pandering and self-seriousness that’s made most major franchises feel so exhausting. Whether or not The Toxic Avenger becomes a hit is (almost) besides the point.
(featured image: Legendary Pictures)
