It's time for another movie that was on my list for a long time but ultimately just never sat down to watch. As I broaden myself with more movies to watch, I definitely need a hot injection of shlock, or, in the case of the movie I watched last night, shock shlock. And nobody does shock shlock as well as Lloyd Kauffman and Troma Entertainment. So what better movie to watch for said broadening than Troma's 1984 film The Toxic Avenger? The movie that put Troma on the map. But is it a good movie overall? In my opinion, yeah, it's not too bad. It's definitely too much for a lot of people in terms of how gruesome it gets, but I enjoyed what I watched. Maybe that's the slow reveal to how twisted I am, but let's talk about the film itself before we really go off the deep end.
Set in the fictional town of Tromaville, New Jersey, nerdy freak Melvin Ferd Junko III is the janitor at the local health club where he is constantly bullied and threatened by Bozo and his crew, who might be the most cartoonish villains I've ever seen, which is fitting given this is a movie about a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength. Aside from being horny gym rats, they're also massive racists and engage in a literal game of hit-and-run, which leads to maybe the most gruesome moment in an already pretty damn gruesome film when they hit a kid with their car and then run over his head. Yeah, like I said early, this is definitely a movie for acquired tastes. After being tricked into wearing a tutu and kissing a goat, Melvin leaps out a window and into some conveniently placed toxic waste.
Melvin becomes the Toxic Avenger, though he's never called that in the film until the very as it was a name given in post. He's known as the Monster Hero throughout, so I'll abstain from calling him Toxie just yet. But it turns Melvin into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength, makes him speak more eloquently, and also turns him into a superhero, brutally destroying any evil being in Tromaville. He also finds love with a blind woman named Sara, which is endearing, albeit over the top in all of the blind gags involving her. The plot mostly just involves Melvin stopping bad guys in increasingly violent fashion, while the mayor, the corrupt Peter Belgoody Goldberg, is out to stop him. However, Melvin's heroic acts turn him into a beloved hero, and the townspeople soon take the side of our hero. It's not the deepest plot ever, but it works.
Melvin is an interesting character. By all accounts, his initial self is worthy of a lot of that derision. He's a nerdy perverted creep who is way too gullible for his own good. I can't say his character has much of an arc. He's nerdy perv one minute, then for the rest of the film he's a hulking hero. One that does feel on the side of good. And, as is the case of the health club bullies, given how over the top they are, the hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength seems downright normal by comparison. Normal while still doing things like wrapping a criminal in metal bars and then dunking their hands in a deep fryer while throwing another criminal in an oven. So maybe I'm being liberal with how I use normal.
The movie's special effects are also super impressive. A strength of the film and of Troma in general is their use of practical effects with gory results. The Toxic Avenger alone looks incredible with his deformed face that predates Sloth from The Goonies yet still looks like him in a way. But what really sells the film is its gore and violence. The aforementioned running over of the kid, a guy getting his head crushed under a weight machine, arms being ripped off, another criminal having their head torn up with a milkshake machine. The movie delivers on over the top. I will say, Bozo aside, the deaths of the gym bullies felt like a letdown. Like, the one girl who tricked Melvin into the prank gets an off-screen death. Chased down the health club basement and threatened with scissors. Like, the other girl got her ass burned by sauna coals. Even the old woman who we learn is a white supremacist human trafficker got it worse.
It also looks and feels very 80s. From the very start of the movie with the introduction to the health club to the gritty look of the streets, the rampant crime and the junkyard setting of Melvin's home, you really feel that Reagan-era "shit's fucked" feel to the inner city. Or maybe that's just how New Jersey always is. It definitely feels like a movie of its era. And there are things that do feel like they've aged poorly, but let's be honest. You aren't going into a movie called "The Toxic Avenger" and expecting a high class piece of art. No, you're here for the sex and violence and Lloyd Kauffman and Michael Hertz deliver on that and then some. Though that also makes this movie tricky to recommend to a general audience. It's definitely a movie you kind of have to know in advance if you'll be down for.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the Toxic Avenger. It's not a perfect movie. It definitely feels like its stretched thin by the end and like I said, it'll be more dependent on your own tastes and how much gore you can stomach, but it still holds up as one of the best of its genre. It also feels like it was going for more of a movie over just diving into the insanity. I'm well aware that's not the case with the sequels which ramp up the insanity. It also had an animated series which is insane to think. I can only imagine the system shock for any kid who watched Toxic Crusaders first, then saw the movie. That's also something I hope to dive deeper into eventually, but as it pertains to the first movie, it's a recommend with an asterisk in that it's more recommended for those who might be able to stomach it. But if you can, it's a fun, weird, brutal 80s gem. ***1/2.
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