The Toxic Avenger

So I’m back and in a big way, with the first in a series of Toxic Avenger movies. All of them are available on Hulu, which is pretty awesome.  I have a lot of catching up to do so lets get started.

The Toxic Avenger is the quintessential Troma movie. It’s pretty much the movie that built one of the longest running and largest independent film companies. This movie sets the pace for what every other movie produced or distributed by Troma would be. Lots of gore, lots of sex, lots of laughs. Most of the Troma movies I have seen seem to follow this formula, some more effectively than others.

The movie is about Melvin, an incredibly nerdy mop boy at the Tromaville Health Club. A group of sadists decide to humiliate him in public which leads to him falling out a window and into a barrel of toxic waste. He becomes the monster hero, a creature driven to kill evil people. Never in this movie is he referred to as The Toxic Avenger. Tromaville seems to be home to the most corrupt and vile people on the planet, so Toxie has his work cut out for him. They are all too happy to shoot a seeing eye dog, run over children, or torture a cop for not taking a bribe. That is where our monster hero steps in, brutally killing villains in the most graphic of details.  Throughout the course of the film, he starts a relationship with a blind girl. Even after she learns that he is a monster, she still loves him. The towns crooked Mayor vows to bring down the monster by any means necessary. I won’t spoil the ending for you because its a pretty sweet ending.

Like most Troma movies, The Toxic Avenger is a movie your either going to like or hate. The violence is pretty horrific and well done considering the budget the movie was made on. One thing that stands out his how this movie looks a lot more expensive than it really is. It seems like they made the most out of every dollar they had.  The humor, you’ll either get it or you won’t. The movie really is all over the place, going from slap stick comedy to graphic horror and nudity in a moments notice.  As hard as it is the believe, the movie has a good heart and a pretty solid story. They seem to borrow a lot from Frankenstein, which is fine because it works out pretty well. The mistakes that are made in the movie are done in such a way that they seem to establish a style. The acting, for any other movie, would be horrible but for this movie, it works here because it oddly fits with the world they create. The camera work was pretty well done. The lighting left something to be desired but its not a really big turn off. My one complaint would be that the pacing can get slow at times. The very beginning of the movie, before he turns into the Toxic Avenger moved pretty slow as did the scene were he foils a fast food robbery.  At times, they really should have kept things moving along but instead took time out to be incredibly graphic or show breasts.

The Toxic Avenger is a movie that’s not for everyone but it’s definitely for me. I understood what they were going for and was on board right from the beginning. I have no clue how they could have made this into a children’s cartoon series but that’s a topic for another day. This movie is not for the sensitive or weak of heart.  I would recommend watching it if only to see if it fits your tastes.

http://www.hulu.com/the-toxic-avenger