November Review: The Toxic Avenger (1984) (Patreon)

Before jumping into the review, this month there was a tie! I threw Rocky and The Toxic Avenger in a randomizer and The Toxic Avenger won. Feel free to submit Rocky again in the future!

Beware that vat of toxic waste, unassuming nerd! It's time to talk about The Toxic Avenger (1984)!

A campy, horror-adjacent romp following the crusade of a dork-turned-mutated-crime-fighter, The Toxic Avenger (1984) has moments of cult comedy amidst an otherwise forgettable 80s romp. Living up to it's original success as a midnight B-flick, there isn't much beneath the surface, but if you're at all a fan of light gore, creative violence, and the comedies of the 1980s, you'll find what you want in The Toxic Avenger (1984).

Before I get too far into a critique of the film, I feel I have to address how it has aged. Weirdly top-heavy, but present throughout, are slurs and stereotypes against just about every race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. While it isn't unusual for a film that is purposefully subversive or seeking the "black comedy" label to include material that is intended to offend, I was surprised by just how much and how overt the language and characters in The Toxic Avenger (1984) are. There is a space for reclaiming the stereotypes we see around us through film, and for showing such biases as ridiculous, hateful, or villainous, but intent does not ensure longevity. As a modern viewer watching with a purposefully critical eye, I was more off-put by the language and representation of this movie than with similar films of the same era, and I don't feel that it is entirely successful at using stereotype and bias to flag "bad people" for it's titular Toxic Avenger to punch. and  more importantly, for it's audience to want to see punched. The only point I can really say in The Toxic Avenger's favor on this point, is it was truly equal opportunity. No ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, or even disability was left uninsulted.

With the "it was the 80s but that doesn't mean we should just ignore the slurs" out of the way, let's talk about the rest of The Toxic Avenger (1984). 

The Toxic Avenger (1984) is at it's core, fairly uncomplicated. A young, nerdy guy is bullied out a window and into some toxic waste, turning him into a monster driven to commit vigilante justice. Violent violent vigilante justice. By the end, the town has rallied around him, and any gym-goer or mayor who's been deemed universally bad has been brutally murdered. It's a plot that is designed to do two things, facilitate convoluted, enviornment-driven action set pieces, and make the monster do silly little gags for the laughs.

In terms of the violence, The Toxic Avenger is successful at providing a few creative fights. The focus is never on whether or not the Toxic Avenger will win against any goons he encounters, but rather on how he can use the business those goons are currently in to kill them. From dry cleaners to greasy spoon kitchens, the Toxic Avenger has more than a few opportunities to make use of the real hero of the movie, small town locales. While these scenes are certainly full of gore, it isn't as satisfying or going as far as in other films, like the Evil Dead flicks of the same era. The Toxic Avenger (1984) screams for more, to push the horror elements and gratuitous violence past what was scattered throughout the existing film. 

Instead, it is the comedy, that this reviewer thinks made The Toxic Avenger (1984) into the cult classic that saved Troma Entertainment. In between scenes of 80's sexuality and violent attacks, are moments of levity, letting the inherent comedy of a Frankenstein out of water situation shine. Scenes like the Toxic Avenger sadly walking down dirt paths, remains of a tulle skirt despondently flapping in the breeze, add some much needed character and laughter to The Toxic Avenger (1984). While not every joke lands, enough ADR one-liners and physical gags get a chuckle to make this black comedy memorable.

Overall, The Toxic Avenger (1984) suffers from a lack of commitment and some very visible aging, but is not entirely without merit. Much like the film's protagonist, The Toxic Avenger (1984) transforms into something somehow more tolerable when it was completely transformed by toxicity. 

4 out of 10 Vats of Unguarded Toxic Waste