I have no idea why it has taken me so long to see The Toxic Avenger movies. When I was a kid I used to enjoy the Toxic Crusaders cartoon, and still have several of the Playmates toys action figures somewhere. But, the day finally came when I purchased the budget DVD (sadly the horribly cut UK version, more on that later), and discovered a strange little movie…

Melvin Junko (Mark Torgl – Beast) is the janitor at the fitness club in Tromaville, New Jersey. Melvin isn’t exactly the most popular of lads, and is constantly being bullied by the gym-goers, most notably Bozo(Gary Schneider – The Class of Nuke ‘em High),Slug (Robert Prichard – The Class of Nuke ‘em High) and their girlfriends Julie (Cindy Manion – Preppies) and Wanda (Jennifer Prichard – Head Games). The four of them have a hobby of being serial hit and runners as well as bullies. One day they play a prank on Melvin, tricking him into wearing a pink tutu and kissing a sheep (don’t ask), but as the jokers chase him laughing, he takes a trip out of a window into a barrel of conveniently placed toxic waste, and is transformed into the hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength, and New Jersey’s first superhero, the Toxic Avenger! (Mitch Cohen – Clerks). It isn’t long before the Avenger is out fighting crime, disposing of criminals with mopsBut this is bad news for the mayor, who is crooked and wants to put an end to his good deeds.

While saving the day at a taco restaurant, Toxie arrives too late to save the guide dog of the gorgeous, but sightless Sara (Andree Maranda – in her only role), because he is a good guy, he helps her home, and it isn’t long before the two fall in love and she moves into his junkyard home.

After the mayor frames Toxie for murdering an innocent woman, the truth being that she was involved in the slave trade, the army are sent in, but will they kill the misunderstood monster? Or will the mayor get his come-uppance?

Now, lets get one thing straight. It is completely futile to even contemplate taking this, or any Troma movie seriously. The movie is a bad taste masterpiece, with, in its uncut form, several scenes that are designed to offend, a few examples would be the child who gets run over and his head squashed and the shooting of the guide dog as it tries to protect Sara. Personally, I can only speculate as to how offensive these are, as the former has been totally cut, making the story flawed (toxie later comments on the incident to Bozo before dishing out his justice) and the latter has been cut to a scene of just the dog and the gun going off. But from what I’ve heard, the full scene is actually quite graphic, and has received the most complaints out of every Troma scene, which is saying something.

The movie’s acting is pretty terrible, but you get the feeling this was intentional. Particularly crap were Togl and Schneider, who both act terribly. With this said, it adds a bit of charm to what is a low budget crappy movie by intention, to actually have bad actors, and not good actors acting like bad ones.

The music is pure cheese, with a slightly cool, if incredibly stupid theme tune.

The special effects, I have to admit that some of the special effects surprised me with their quality. While the avenger looks like crap, the transformation scenes are actually pretty well done. The gore I can’t speak for, because it has all been cut from my DVD.

The good thing about the movie is that it is combines all the the charm and silliness of an old cheapie B movie superhero effort with a late 70s/80s over the top gore and insult to a pretty comical effect. The fact that it is trash, but it knows it and aimed to be it is something that would usually go wrong, but for some reason it works here. Weather it’s the genuinely bad actors, the rubbish Toxie effects or what, there is just something that makes this movie fun to watch.

The Toxic Avenger is a tough movie to write about, because it is complete garbage, yet that is what it sets out to be. It really should be avoided by the easily offended, but personally I found it an incredibly silly, yet not un-enjoyable waste of a bit of time. It’s hardly a great by Oscar standards, but at the same time, I might just dig out my Toxie figure to sit on top of my TV.

Year: 1985
Titles: The Toxic Avenger

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age