{"id":1370,"date":"2024-07-27T18:49:09","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T18:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:38:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:38:40","slug":"the-toxic-avenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/27\/the-toxic-avenger\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toxic Avenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Toxic Avenger <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Troma\/Comedy-Action-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 82 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unrated version (extreme violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joe Ritter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mark Katz (consultant)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: James London and Lloyd Kaufman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 1986 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mitchell Cohen, Andree Maranda, Pat Ryan Jr., Jennifer Baptist, Robert Prichard, Cindy Manion, Gary Schneider, Mark Torgl, Dick Martinsen, Chris Liano, David Weiss, Dan Snow, Doug Isbecque, Charles Lee Jr., Pat Kilpatrick, Larry Sulton, Mike Russo, Norma Pratt, Andrew Craig, Ryan Sexton.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $800,000 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are moments in every movie geek\u2019s life that help define who they will become. One of mine is the day in February \u201987 I rented The Toxic Avenger<\/strong>. It\u2019s the day I was introduced to the weird wonderful world of Troma. The owner of The Video Den made it an instant 99 cent rental he thought it was so awful. That NEVER happened with brand new releases. It didn\u2019t deter me though. Are you kidding? Like I\u2019m NOT going to rent a movie with the tagline \u201cThe First Superhuman Hero from New Jersey\u201d? I\u2019m sorry, have we met? I\u2019m the Movie Guy! ANYWAY, that\u2019s the day I became a fan and honorary citizen of Tromaville.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Melvin Ferd (Torgl), a 98 lb. weakling who works as a janitor at Tromaville Health Club, is a classic victim. He\u2019s constantly bullied and harassed by muscleheads Bozo (Schneider) and Slug (Prichard) and their girlfriends Julie (Manion) and Wanda (Baptist). One day, they take it too far with a cruel prank that ends with Melvin falling into a drum of toxic waste. This misfortune causes him to transform into a big hideous monster (Cohen) with superhuman strength. Instead of terrorizing the city, he declares war on all criminals operating in Tromaville, NJ including the corrupt mayor (Ryan, Fighting Back). As \u201cThe Monster Hero\u201d grows in popularity, His Dishonor tries to have him killed before it\u2019s discovered that he\u2019s the scumbag behind all criminal enterprises in town.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Toxic Avenger, hereafter referred to as \u201cToxie\u201d, finds love with Sara (Maranda), an attractive blind girl he meets while foiling a violent robbery at a fast food taco joint. Three creeps with guns burst into the joint and start terrorizing the customers. They kill Sara\u2019s guide dog and attempt to rape her. Luckily, Toxie shows up in the nick of time. Now here\u2019s a guy who knows how to deal with dirtbags. He rips one guy\u2019s arm off and beats him with it. He later cooks him in a pizza oven. Creep #2 gets his with a milkshake blender down the throat. Creep #3 has his hands dunked in the deep fryer. That\u2019s what you get for killing a dog, a**holes!<\/p>\n

\u00a0As indicated in the preceding paragraph, The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> is insanely violent and bloody hence the reason for its \u201cNo One Under 17 Admitted\u201d policy. For me, that\u2019s a major deal clincher. The gore highlights include a boy\u2019s head being crushed after he\u2019s deliberately hit by a car driven by Bozo and Slug playing a sick game, a drug dealer\u2019s head being crushed by a set of weights, somebody\u2019s eyes being gouged out and a disembowelment (Toxie rips his guts right out). All of it is cheesy and cool at the same time. It\u2019s also not meant to be taken seriously. One of Troma\u2019s trademarks is their comical approach to their movies no matter what the genre. One look at titles like Class of Nuke \u2018Em High, Surf Nazis Must Die, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown and Sgt Kabukiman NYPD should tell you that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Troma founders Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman (under the pseudonym \u201cSamuel Weil\u201d), The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> is the studio\u2019s finest hour (and 22 minutes) even if it is total junk. I\u2019m not going to lie, it\u2019s a low-budget affair all the way. It\u2019s not put together with the greatest care or slightest concern for artistic integrity. The acting takes OTT to a whole new level. It has exaggerated character types- e.g. the German-accented, heel-clicking, Nazi-saluting police chief (Weiss)- not characters. The only development of any kind is Melvin\u2019s transformation into Toxie. I will say that they do a good job with the Toxie effects. Sure, it\u2019s an actor in a rubber suit but it\u2019s just right for this silly monster movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What we\u2019re dealing with here is a goofy live-action comic book starring a superhero beloved by children, citizens and the sole honest cop (Martinsen) in Tromaville, all grateful for his service to their community. In the end, it\u2019s the kids that form a human shield around their hero when the National Guard has their guns pointed at him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the end, The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> encompasses all that\u2019s great about cheap exploitation movies. It can be summed up in one word, FUN. Of course, you have to like this kind of movie to begin with. It\u2019s obviously not going to appeal to elitist filmgoers who live on a steady diet of fine art cinema. Fans of trash cinema, on the other hand, should love it. That\u2019s where I stand on it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toxic Avenger (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Troma\/Comedy-Action-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 82 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unrated version (extreme violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joe Ritter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mark Katz (consultant)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: James London and Lloyd Kaufman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 1986 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mitchell Cohen, Andree Maranda, Pat Ryan Jr., Jennifer Baptist, Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-cool-cult-flicks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Toxic-Avenger-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1955,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions\/1955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}