King Loke's Kreepshow - The Toxic Avenger's Shadow

1984 is a momentous year for many, many reasons. Godzilla returned to Japanese theaters with Godzilla Returns, Ronald Reagan was re-elected, cementing America’s decline in the modern era, a movie version of Orwell’s 1984 was released, Apple released an ad that everyone and their mother parodied for decades, and Purple Rain flooded the airwaves. Most importantly, the scrappy, low-rent schlock factory known as Troma Entertainment released a movie that would define the tone and brand of exploitation they trafficked in until the end of time. Nobody knows why it happened. Maybe the Star Wars saga wrapping up definitively they year before (it was a simpler time) left a void that someone had to fill; maybe Wes Craven’s melodramatic piece of trash, Swamp Thing, a few years before left Lloyd Kaufman wishing for a real movie about a slimy, green, monster superhero. Either way, with a new movie called The Toxic Avenger coming out a the end of this month, it’s worth looking back at the ’84 original and the franchise it spawned while looking ahead to the new one, as a movie made in 2023 and released in ’25 is going to be radically different as to be nearly unrecognizable.

The Toxic Avenger is the story of Melvin Ferd, a dweebish, nerdy outcast who seems to be autistic in addition to being socially awkward. When he gets too close to the psychotic teenagers who frequent the gym he works at as a janitor, they trick him into weaping a pink tutu and dump him in the toxic waste that surrounds their 1950’s looking town of Tromaville. He doesn’t die though, as this movie is called The Toxic Avenger, and by the cartoon logic of superhero comics, the chemicals mutate him into a gigantic, soft-spoken, muscle-creature, with mismatched eyes and a vicious snarl. His pink tutu is smeared dark green with filth, and with his trusty mop in hand he sets about punishing those who assaulted him, before going after the local villains of his corrupt little town.

The villainous teens are like a warped parody of earlier movies like Porky’s and American Graffiti. They don’t just have sex and smoke weed, they commit murder and behave like absolute degenerates, as if they are so rotted by their culture that they are barely human. Besides terrorizing and attempting to murder Melvin, they run people over in the street, crushing a little boy’s head under their tires, whooping a shouting like the savage bikers from a Mad Max movie.

The execution is what makes the movie work, as the plot is nothing special, and the characters are forgettable, at best. Melvin, or Toxie, as he would come to be known, talks in a normal voice, not affecting a tone befitting the gigantic, deformed physique of his monstrous character. Whenever Toxie kills someone, gratuitous guts and blood splatter the setting and characters. The villains are loud and obnoxious, like they walked right out of a He-Man cartoon. It’s cartoonish, juvenile, and very much a far cry from the excesses that would come to define later Troma offerings such as Tromeo and Juliet (written by James Gunn!) and even later Toxic Avenger movies.

Toxie would go on to appear in three sequels, two unconnected, short-lived comic series, and even a 13 episode cartoon show called Toxic Crusaders. Despite expanding more than any other Troma franchise and indeed most other superhero properties not named Spider-Man or Batman, Toxie would be dormant for over twenty years, with his final instalment being Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV in 2000. It’s worth pointing out that the animated series came out after the similarly eco-conscious cartoon, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and was likely in production as the same time as Toxie’s rival’s cartoon, Swamp Thing, which came out later that same year.

But now he’s back, played by Peter Dinklage, a little person who became famous for playing a short, deformed character on Game of Thrones referred to as “The Imp”, and has now gone on to play several roles that did not depend on his diminutive stature, such as Bolivar Trask in X-Men: Days of Future Past and whatever he was doing in the Adam Sandler vehicle, Pixels. If the new Toxic Avenger movie was set in any other decade, knowing Troma’s proclivities for low-brow humor and general offensiveness, Dinklage’s height might have been a predictable medium for them to mine cheap gags and offensive situations, but in todays era, it’s a toss-up on whether or not they go for the easy laughs, or just deliver on bad guys getting their arms torn off. Troma movies are privileged like that, you go in expecting appeals to the lowest common denominator, and are pleasantly surprised when, amongst the tits, gore, and terrible acting, something poignant or slightly interesting happens.

Those are my thoughts on The Toxic Avenger. To be blunt, it’s interesting when viewed in the context of Turtle-mania or other cartoon characters that were big in the ‘80s, but only in a cursory manner. Often referred to as “the movie that built Troma”, it’s worth watching the first movie along with the second and third for their unique stylistic humor, especially if you’re unaccustomed to the Troma tone, but by the end you might feel like it’s run out of things of value to say, if it ever did in the first place. I feel like I should be more excited for the new film, but I have yet to see anything interesting to get my hopes up for something I don’t have strong feelings for in the first place.

Maybe eventually I’ll discuss the double-whammy of The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part 3: The Last Temptation of Toxie, which were meant to be one movie, but first I have more monster movies to write about, such as this years Monster Island, The Return of Swamp Thing, and too many more to tease here. Until then, watch this space for the Kreep Show!

The Toxic Avenger’s Shadow

1984 is a momentous year for many, many reasons. Godzilla returned to Japanese theaters with Godzilla Returns, Ronald Reagan was re-elected, cementing America’s decline in the modern era, a movie version of Orwell’s 1984 was released, Apple released an ad that everyone and their mother parodied for decades, and Purple Rain flooded the airwaves. Most importantly, the scrappy, low-rent schlock factory known as Troma Entertainment released a movie that would define the tone and brand of exploitation they trafficked in until the end of time. Nobody knows why it happened. Maybe the Star Wars saga wrapping up definitively they year before (it was a simpler time) left a void that someone had to fill; maybe Wes Craven’s melodramatic piece of trash, Swamp Thing, a few years before left Lloyd Kaufman wishing for a real movie about a slimy, green, monster superhero. Either way, with a new movie called The Toxic Avenger coming out a the end of this month, it’s worth looking back at the ’84 original and the franchise it spawned while looking ahead to the new one, as a movie made in 2023 and released in ’25 is going to be radically different as to be nearly unrecognizable.

The Toxic Avenger is the story of Melvin Ferd, a dweebish, nerdy outcast who seems to be autistic in addition to being socially awkward. When he gets too close to the psychotic teenagers who frequent the gym he works at as a janitor, they trick him into weaping a pink tutu and dump him in the toxic waste that surrounds their 1950’s looking town of Tromaville. He doesn’t die though, as this movie is called The Toxic Avenger, and by the cartoon logic of superhero comics, the chemicals mutate him into a gigantic, soft-spoken, muscle-creature, with mismatched eyes and a vicious snarl. His pink tutu is smeared dark green with filth, and with his trusty mop in hand he sets about punishing those who assaulted him, before going after the local villains of his corrupt little town.

The villainous teens are like a warped parody of earlier movies like Porky’s and American Graffiti. They don’t just have sex and smoke weed, they commit murder and behave like absolute degenerates, as if they are so rotted by their culture that they are barely human. Besides terrorizing and attempting to murder Melvin, they run people over in the street, crushing a little boy’s head under their tires, whooping a shouting like the savage bikers from a Mad Max movie.

The execution is what makes the movie work, as the plot is nothing special, and the characters are forgettable, at best. Melvin, or Toxie, as he would come to be known, talks in a normal voice, not affecting a tone befitting the gigantic, deformed physique of his monstrous character. Whenever Toxie kills someone, gratuitous guts and blood splatter the setting and characters. The villains are loud and obnoxious, like they walked right out of a He-Man cartoon. It’s cartoonish, juvenile, and very much a far cry from the excesses that would come to define later Troma offerings such as Tromeo and Juliet (written by James Gunn!) and even later Toxic Avenger movies.

Toxie would go on to appear in three sequels, two unconnected, short-lived comic series, and even a 13 episode cartoon show called Toxic Crusaders. Despite expanding more than any other Troma franchise and indeed most other superhero properties not named Spider-Man or Batman, Toxie would be dormant for over twenty years, with his final instalment being Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV in 2000. It’s worth pointing out that the animated series came out after the similarly eco-conscious cartoon, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and was likely in production as the same time as Toxie’s rival’s cartoon, Swamp Thing, which came out later that same year.

But now he’s back, played by Peter Dinklage, a little person who became famous for playing a short, deformed character on Game of Thrones referred to as “The Imp”, and has now gone on to play several roles that did not depend on his diminutive stature, such as Bolivar Trask in X-Men: Days of Future Past and whatever he was doing in the Adam Sandler vehicle, Pixels. If the new Toxic Avenger movie was set in any other decade, knowing Troma’s proclivities for low-brow humor and general offensiveness, Dinklage’s height might have been a predictable medium for them to mine cheap gags and offensive situations, but in todays era, it’s a toss-up on whether or not they go for the easy laughs, or just deliver on bad guys getting their arms torn off. Troma movies are privileged like that, you go in expecting appeals to the lowest common denominator, and are pleasantly surprised when, amongst the tits, gore, and terrible acting, something poignant or slightly interesting happens.

Those are my thoughts on The Toxic Avenger. To be blunt, it’s interesting when viewed in the context of Turtle-mania or other cartoon characters that were big in the ‘80s, but only in a cursory manner. Often referred to as “the movie that built Troma”, it’s worth watching the first movie along with the second and third for their unique stylistic humor, especially if you’re unaccustomed to the Troma tone, but by the end you might feel like it’s run out of things of value to say, if it ever did in the first place. I feel like I should be more excited for the new film, but I have yet to see anything interesting to get my hopes up for something I don’t have strong feelings for in the first place.

Maybe eventually I’ll discuss the double-whammy of The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part 3: The Last Temptation of Toxie, which were meant to be one movie, but first I have more monster movies to write about, such as this years Monster Island, The Return of Swamp Thing, and too many more to tease here. Until then, watch this space for the Kreep Show!