Bold, ridiculous, shocking, and utterly brilliant, The Toxic Avenger (1984) is a low-budget horror treasure that continues to entertain new audiences every year. It’s a true one-off, despite the numerous sequels that followed, and I can’t think of a better Halloween night movie to accompany your buckets of popcorn and booze.
The Toxic Avenger and the Class of Nuk’ Em High (1986) are the undisputed kings of Troma’s delightfully wacky world of low-budget horror. Created by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz alongside writer Joe Ritter, The Toxic Avenger (1984) set the blueprint for Troma, bathing its audience in tons of gore, smut, and a hefty dose of shocks; in fact, a movie like The Toxic Avenger would likely never get past censors today. Do I need to remind you of the scene where an innocent young boy is viciously mowed down by a car? Everything about The Toxic Avenger’s tongue-in-cheek fantasy horror is made to shock, and that’s what makes this freewheeling and frenzied gore-fest so much fun, even today.
Mark Torgl plays Melvin Ferd, a young, geeky and, let’s face it, slightly simple janitor who works at a health club in Tromaville, NJ. There, homicidal jocks Bozo (Gary Schneider) and Slug (Robert Prichard) treat him as a punching bag as they cruelly taunt him at every turn while spending their weekends bumping off random kids on bikes and elderly passersby. But when Melvin falls into a vat of toxic waste, a mutated Hulk (Mitchell Cohen) is born with a mission to fight injustice wherever it rears its ugly head. The trouble is, the town might not be ready for such a deformed and slimy superhero!
Bold, ridiculous, shocking, and utterly brilliant, The Toxic Avenger is a 1980s low-budget horror treasure that continues to entertain new audiences every year. It’s a true one-off, despite the numerous sequels that followed, and I can’t think of a better Halloween night movie to accompany your buckets of popcorn and booze.
Made for less than $500,000, this Troma Entertainment delight raises two fingers to Hollywood and carves its own unique path as an anti-establishment, low-budget ’80s horror-comedy gem. Some hate it with a passion, but screw ’em! It’s a twisted treat from start to finish.
The Toxic Avenger (1984) is available to rent, buy or stream this Halloween.
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