‘The Toxic Avenger’ Fantastic Fest 2023 Review: A Gooey, Gory, Bloody Affair
Drew Tinnin
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Shockingly, Troma Entertainment has managed to stick around the film scene for a staggering 50 years. Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman—the self-proclaimed cine-shlock king of exploitation—was there at Fantastic Fest to pass the torch (or the mop) over to actor-director Macon Blair (Green Room, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore) for a new take on The Toxic Avenger.
Like many wannabe filmmakers, including James Gunn, Troma movies were a kind of run-and-gun film school that taught up-and-coming talent how to navigate the controlled chaos of the movie business. Blair himself grew up at the altar of Troma where The Toxic Avenger, Tromeo & Juliet, and Terror Firmer drilled their way into his very impressionable brain. Now, Blair has gifted audiences of a certain ilk with his big-budget version of Toxie that keeps the spirit of Troma alive while also infusing a little bit of heart into the mix.
In the role he was never really born to play and somehow agreed to, four-time Emmy award winner Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) stars as Winston Gooze, a lowly janitor working for the corrupt nutraceutical company BT Healthstyle. When a downtrodden Winston learns he has a fatal brain fog disease, he asks his slick boss Bob Garbinger (a smarmy Kevin Bacon) for help. After being summarily rejected, Winston dips his mop into a vat of toxic waste and makes a failed attempt to rob his employer. Instead, Garbinger’s evil henchman, the Killer Nutz, force Winston to dive head-first into a bubbling ooze, transforming him into a mutant.
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Our reluctant hero eventually sets out to avenge his own dark, disgusting fate, becoming a beacon of hope for the less fortunate townspeople in St. Roma’s Village (a clever bit of wordplay to honor Troma’s excessive use of bad puns). In the original 1984 film, a bullied nerd named Winston (Mark Torgl) transforms into the muscle-bound Toxic Avenger (Mitchell Cohen) to get back at his tormentors. From there, the cult classic plays out like a grotesque version of WrestleMania. Here, Dinklage’s dedicated performance gives Toxie a warm center and a deeper level of pathos.
It’s unclear just how often and when Dinklage is acting under the weight of the extensive makeup and prosthetics work. His eyes pierce through the mask, though, and his booming voice makes the over-the-top theatrics feel a little more grounded. The creature work updates Toxie’s look for a new generation and definitely takes inspiration from the short-lived cartoon Toxic Crusaders from the early ’90s. The dedication Dinklage brings a certain legitimacy to The Toxic Avenger which automatically makes it seem even more ridiculous.
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Seeing A-list actors going full tilt for Blair’s whacked-out vision is a bit surreal at times, and that’s the point of casting them in the first place. Bacon, in particular, looks reinvigorated playing an evil corporate cliché who becomes obsessed with extracting Toxie’s blood for a new super elixir he can sell to the masses. Elijah Wood as Garbinger’s lackey brother Fritz fuses his performance to create a freaky hybrid that channels Gollum from Lord of the Rings and RiffRaff from Rocky Horror. Another standout is relative newcomer Taylour Paige as J.J. Doherty, an eco-terrorist who teams up with Toxie to destroy BTH for good. Paige’s line delivery and quippy dialogue wind up being the funniest parts of The Toxic Avenger, delivering big laughs in smaller moments.
As for the rest of the toilet humor, most of the show-stopping gags and gross-out butt jokes don’t entirely land. Blair uses his significant budget courtesy of Legendary to make his ultimate backyard fantasy movie. The Toxic Avenger was made for your inner 12-year-old, and if you’re not still in touch with that side of yourself, a lot of the intentional sleaze on display is probably not going to be for you. For Troma fans, there are plenty of nods and easter eggs, along with plenty of goretastic effects work and Looney Tunes-inspired CGI to feast on.
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There was no telling what kind of movie Blair was going to make here. It could have been a brooding revenge film like Blue Ruin or a treatise on corporate greed and climate change. Toxie has already gone green before in The Toxic Avenger: The Musical, after all. In this day and age, it’s a wonder that this juvenile update of Troma’s crown jewel even exists at all. Box office prognostications aside, Blair made exactly the kind of movie homage he set out to. Whether that’s palatable for mass consumption is irrelevant.
For the hardcore fans residing in Tromaville, The Toxic Avenger is going to end up on the shelf right next to Lloyd Kaufman’s how-to book Make Your Own Damn Movie!. And that’s probably exactly where Blair imagines his tribute ending up. That, or right in the trash.
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The Toxic Avenger
Summary
For all the awards and accolades that have been bestowed upon the A-list actors that appear in Macon Blair’s The Toxic Avenger, this is probably going to be the film they’re most remembered for.
