A Look Back at The Toxic Avenger (1984)

 

With a brand new Toxic Avenger movie just around the corner, it's now a perfect time to review the original 1984 cult classic.

The Toxic Avenger is a superhero black comedy splatter movie and the first installment of the series. Troma Entertainment both produced and distributed. Lloyd Kaufman wrote the story with Joe Ritter and Lloyd (under the name Samuel Weil) also co-directed the movie alongside Michael Herz.

The story is, local evil teens Bozo, Slug, Wanda, and Julie pulled a cruel prank on scrawny, awkward janitor Melvin Ferd which resulted in him falling into a drum of toxic waste. However this doesn't kill Melvin but turns him into a deformed but super strong mutant. Melvin now not only plans to get revenge on those who wronged him, but also clean up the crime infecting his town.

• Negatives

I've got nothing.

• Mix

If there's one mix bag I got with the movie it's the acting. Now I wasn't expecting anything award winning, especially from Troma who are known for their over the top b-movies. So I was fully expecting some exaggerated acting. However, sometimes the exaggeration can get very grating. I got over Melvin's odd behavior very quick.

• Positives

One positive is the humor. Now some jokes ad gags didn't work, but for a majority of the film I was having a blast. The humor comes from cartoonish fights, but there's also some pretty good dialogue. My favorite line being is when Melvin/Toxic Avenger got done beating up a group of bad guys and he says, "And you tell your scum friends that things are gonna change in this town. I'm not just another pretty face".

Now let's move onto the pacing. This clocks in at one hour and twenty-seven minutes, but it felt a little bit shorter than that. There was even a point where I had to pause this movie to let my dog out, and when I saw the timestamp I was surprised to find out I was already forty-four minutes in. So yeah, this is a chore to get through it's a breeze.

The next I'll praise is the DIY energy. This is a pure low budget flick. The practical effects are good but the filmmaking is very raw in the best possible way. So if you're a fan of more grindhouse cinema or if you're curious about grindhouse cinema, then I say if you're a fan this'll a appeal to you (provided you haven't already seen it and made your own judgement) and if you're curious then this'll be a good starting point.

While I have a bit of a gripe with the acting, I still had lots of fun with this. I'm so glad I made the decision to watch it before seeing the upcoming remake.

My final rating is, Good.

Before I sign out I do want to say one more thing. If you guys are curious about watching this, then you can watch it on free streaming sites like Tubi, Pluto TV, or Plex. This isn't some sort of sponsorship or anything, I just thought I give a helping hand.

Alright, that's all for now. Come back on Saturday, Aug 30th, for my review of well, the remake of The Toxic Avenger. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.