Toxic Avenger
The realm of low budget, exploitation cinema might also be the most hit or miss of its kind in the entire artistic landscape. While some revel in the bad Ed Wood style of filmmaking, amateur hour acting, and sloppy as hell production values, most people have little use for these types of films and even outright shun them in order to spend their time and money on so called ârealâ movies. And while many of these films are completely atrocious mostly because they all cover well beaten paths and / or shamelessly rip off more successful franchises, the secret for success and recognition with little to no money is usually to turn on the camera and film something that has NEVER been seen before on screen (a tactic that John Waters used to ride his way to infamy, even if the actual quality of his output was shit), but the even rarer and more daring method is to take your low budget and while still embracing the more extreme levels of this style of movie, to actually manage to be able to create your own entire âfranchiseâ onto itself (similar to what Sam Raimi did with his Evil Deads), complete with inventing your own self created, in house superhero that can not only serve as a tentpole for your company (even having the characterâs face in the studio logo), but also manage to spawn a merchandising blitz that includes action figures, a cartoon show, and of course lesser quality sequels (something Raimi himself did not do nearly as successfully with his Darkman). But amazingly Lloyd Kaufman did just that with this 1984 release that helped create his legendary Troma Studios (though theyâve never topped this film artistically) and did so in such a way that was so insane, so over the top, that itâs rare to watch any film where itâs clear that the filmmakers just basically chose to do whatever the hell they felt like doing in terms of violence and gore effects, and that explains why Kaufman and co director Michael Herz went into this project deliberately planning to see if they could successfully combine elements of both horror and comedy together (long before Evil Dead 2 made it hip), the latter being done on purpose at times in order to cover for the bad acting you see here and there throughout the film, even as future Oscar winner Marisa Tomei can clearly be seen here as an extra and Vincent DâOnofrio was cast as one of the main villains and was all set to go, but when he wound up asking for a little bit more money out of the producers, he was immediately fired and quickly replaced with a cheaper, less capable performer in his part. The story begins at the local health spa in the town of Tromaville, NJ (âthe toxic waste capital of the worldâ), a place where not only do the socially elite of the town always seem to gather to get their sweat on (even a disgusting fat girl who eats a candy bar and chips during her aerobics workout), but where those who might be considered âdifferentâ are mercilessly taunted and bullied to no end. Naturally, we meet the resident âmop boyâ at the facility, a hapless bumbling nerd named Melvin Fern (Mark Torgl, a guy whose geeky awkwardness is so pronounced that one wonders if the guy is possibly legitimately handicapped), who while good naturedly tripping over people and accidentally sticking his mop in othersâ faces, is also a shameless, creepy, lecherous voyeur who openly stalks certain female members around the place. Interestingly, this is probably the least of the many horrific acts committed in the film by many of the filmâs truly degenerate characters, but regardless, when a handful of the patrons decide that theyâve had enough of his antics, they set him up for an incredibly cruel prank that leads him to commit suicide by jumping out of the nearest window, only to land headfirst in a barrel of toxic waste on the back of a truck that was stopped outside because the two drivers decided to dive into a big bag of coke together (naturally), and after Melvin comes out horribly burned and even spontaneously combusts, he makes his way home only to feel his body transforming before he turns into this cinematic original, comic book superhero (even as his own personality also completely changes in the process), armed with strength, invulnerability, and even the ability to precognitively sniff out pure evil in certain people prior to any kind of attack on them where usually he dispenses a nasty, gory, merciless death upon their heads (even if any of them helplessly beg him for mercy). The undeniable rush of suffering such a tragic, painful accident only to emerge as something physically better (and overall more preferable) to what you were before is a potent one, as well as the bonus points of (since his face is physically deformed) being able to date a sweet, young, blonde, blind girl who is arguably the hottest girl in the whole movie and even getting to have a semi wild nude sex scene with her. But wait, thereâs more: Turns out that evil is massively afoot in Tromaville, and while Kaufman wisely keeps Toxie the focus of the story, instead of following the usual superhero movie route of having one or two primary villains, this film takes the interesting step of giving our protagonist a full, entire rogues gallery for him to slaughter his way through over the course of the story, and while some are more memorable than others, all are at the very least qualified enough to each be considered unique, even as we witness most of them engage in some of the absolutely most reprehensible acts of human (and animal) cruelty ever seen altogether in one film, with the atrocities included but not limited to a young boy on a bike being run down before having his head squashed like a grape, a shotgun being pointed in an infant babyâs face, the blind girl being threatened with rape before her seeing eye dog is shot apart for barking too much, and a sweet little old lady who is brutally beaten up prior to having her car stolen. Among the pool of villains are the bullies from the health club who also moonlight as automotive hit and run serial killers, a trio of thugs consisting of a seemingly retarded brute, a prissy transvestite, and a memorably snarling bastard who goes by the name of Cigar Face, an obviously Nazi police chief (haw haw), a two bit pimp who tries to peddle a child on Toxie (âSheâs only 12 years old and only 12 dollars!â), a grossly out of shape drug dealer at the health club, three holdup freaks at a fast food place one of which is a painted up psycho played by future B movie star Patrick Kilpatrick, and the (very) morbidly obese and corrupt Town Mayor who ultimately orders in The National Guard to kill the âmonster heroâ whoâs messing up a lot of his illegal operations. Indeed, the natural ability on Toxieâs part to just automatically sense pure evil and thus dispense with some gruesome justice (in a way that predates later movies such as Boondock Saints and Frailty) constitutes a quick, efficient but yet still simplistic fast food form of final judgment as such that our own legal system could never truly fathom with the actual scum of our society, but whatâs also amazing is the fact that much of this material is actually FUNNY (albeit in a very tasteless way), and along with the copious amounts of female nudity and depravity (the two hit and run girls are so incredibly sick and twisted that they actually wave to the kid on the bike before pulverizing him, take poloroids of his squashed head and brains on the road, and one even goes so far as to become SO sexually aroused by these photos that she is actually shown furiously masturbating to them in the sauna before Toxie comes to claim her), that obviously limiting viewing of this movie to those under 17 would sound like a no brainer to most (though the key demographic at times seems to be 12 year old boys), but nonetheless the fact that this adults only fare (with three far lesser sequels to come) would actually manage to become popular enough to inspire a line of toys, action figures, and the obviously meant for kids Saturday morning cartoon show just goes to prove that when it comes to cult movies and the cinema of the extreme, if a movie is good (or great) enough that everybody is talking about it, then you too might just create as extraordinary a phenomenom as Lloyd Kaufman did, a movie that for all of its sick, demented trappings, manages to hit the peak of genius just often enough so that audiences of future generations will go on discovering it and comparing it favorably to the violence in certain movies that we see today and know that at one time, all of it was done just rightâŚ
10/10