The Toxic Avenger does exactly what one would want from a remake of a classic horror film, as it honors the spirit of the original but does not soullessly recreate it. Instead, it takes the story in some interesting new directions but never forgets what made audiences fall in love with the property in the first place.
This might seem odd, as general audiences might not know exactly what The Toxic Avenger even is. The original was a 1984 cult B schlock horror film created by Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment. The film was cheap, dirty, and in poor taste, which is one of the many reasons why it generated a cult following. It was a film very much of the moment, a punk rock superhero for Reagan's America that spoke to the outcasts and misfits. It was quickly and cheaply put together, but also had a great deal of heart behind it.
While it was originally intended as a slasher film, it quickly morphed into more of a superhero pastiche, playing off the genre conventions audiences expected from Christopher Reeves' Superman, Adam West's Batman, and Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, but with a more graphically violent and twisted edge.
The new film, from director and writer Macon Blair, looks to give the Toxic Avenger an update and make him a hero of this current moment in time. It takes the story in new directions and, bolstered by an incredible cast and sense of direction, maintains a great balance between horror, comedy, and truly inspiring super-heroics that should be seen with a crowd full of moviegoers looking for a throwback to classic B-movies that one would find at the video store.
Same Basic Idea, New Avenues
The Toxic Avenger remake follows the broad strokes of the original film: a down-on-his-luck man is transformed into an avenging monster/superhero hybrid when his body falls into a series of toxic chemicals, and he needs to take revenge on those that harmed him. Yet that is pretty much all that the movie does that is similar (aside from a few nice references to the original), and instead crafts a new tale.
In this version, the story follows Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage), a janitor for an evil chemical company run by Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon). Winston is a single step-father who is left to take care of his deceased wife's son, Wade (Jacob Tremblay), who has issues connecting with his stepdad. When Winston discovers he, too, is dying of brain cancer — and his company insurance denies him, and his boss mocks him — he attempts to steal the money but accidentally crosses with former employee J.J. Doherty (Taylor Paige), who is looking to bring down the company for how their chemicals have harmed her family. The hired killers that are hunting J.J. accidentally kill Winston and dump his body into the chemical waste, where he is transformed into the Toxic Avenger.
Now dubbed "Toxie," he becomes a lead target for a vengeful mob boss who wants revenge after Toxie hurt one of his own, and Garbinger wants to study Toxie and make himself a perfect human. Garbinger is supported by his assistant and romantic partner, Kissy Sturnvan (Julia Davis), and his brother, Fritz Garbinger (Elijah Wood). Toxie must expose the evil crimes committed by the company while also saving his son.
What makes this remake so effective is just how different it is from the original. Oftentimes, remakes of popular horror properties from the 1980s tend to stick so close to the original format they forget to offer something new (2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street comes to mind). The same can be said with reboots of popular superhero properties. How many times have audiences seen Bruce Wayne's parents get shot in a crime alley? Yet The Toxic Avenger is not afraid to play around with the formula.
Macon Blair knows to keep the heart and soul of the property. This is a story about a non-traditional hero going up against a system that so badly wants to define itself by "perfection" and that revels in over-the-top kills and gore, but also knows it needs to stand on its own. It can be enjoyed by fans of the original, as it clearly has a love for the franchise, but it also can be enjoyed by newcomers as a standalone film. This is a story about a family, and it works because of how well the cast commits to it.
Peter Dinklage Is The Toxic Avenger
Peter Dinklage has always been one of the best working actors, and it is great to not only give him a lead role, but one in a genre film that truly lets him shine in all of his best features. He can be very sweet and sympathetic but also has an over-the-top rage that can be powerful. He and Tremblay have a real strong emotional bond, and it just is amazing to see how far Tremblay has come. It's hard to believe his star-making performance in Room was eight years ago, and now he has grown into a young man. He has always shone, but it is clear his career is only just getting started, and audiences will have years of interesting films to look forward to him in.
The film wisely puts Paige as the grounded straight woman character that helps balance the tone of the film. All the goofiness and over-the-top performances in the film are built off the axis of her normalcy. Kevin Bacon is a delight as a villain, as he is really enjoying going over the top for this performance. Bacon is often typecast as the villain, and part of that is just because of how well he does it with that charming but also sinister smile. Yet it is often overlooked just how funny he truly is, and always excels in comedic performances. It is also nice to see him back in the bloody B-horror film zone after Friday the 13th helped launch his career in 1980.
Yet the standout here might be Elijah Wood. Wood is given a great visual look that is both unrecognizable but also still clearly him, a cross between Danny DeVito's Penguin in Batman Returns and Richard O'Brien in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wood has spent much of his post-Lord of the Rings career trying to shake the good guy Frodo image from playing a cannibal serial killer in Sin City to starring opposite a guy in a dog costume on Wilfred. The Toxic Avenger is certainly one of Wood's best performances, as it is both an over-the-top portrayal and one layered with nuance that ties in with the wider theme of the outsider being misunderstood.
Bloody Good Time
Right from the beginning of The Toxic Avenger, it is clear this movie is not aiming for any sense of realism. This is an over-the-top comic book world that feels like a cross between Dick Tracy, The Crow, and Evil Dead 2. Everything is exaggerated for comedic effect, with many great audio gags that populate the world. This gonzo, over-the-top, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach certainly might be off-putting to some and won't be for everyone. Yet it certainly is one that works for a crowd of genre fans, ones who love horror films and grimy, dirty, over-the-top action.
The Toxic Avenger knows that it can have it both ways. It can be juvenile in the best way possible. It's a movie that revels in bad taste and wants the audience to cheer at the screen when body parts are smashed off, guts pour out onto the floor, and death scenes are so over-the-top it feels like a cartoon, yet at the same time can have a deep emotional heart.
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Director James Gunn, best known for his superhero work for The Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, who is now running DC Studios, got his start with Troma Entertainment and wrote the screenplay for Tromeo+Juliet. The impact it and the original Toxic Avenger had on his work is clear, as many of Gunn's B-movie-style films also walk the fine line between over-the-top gross-out humor and violence but also stories that wear their hearts on their sleeves. Movies like this have a real heart to them. They are about outcasts and weirdos and both want to be punk rock and shock audiences, but also use that as a defense to allow them to be incredibly emotionally sincere.
The 2023 Toxic Avenger remake perfectly captures that spirit and actually does it better than Gunn's earlier work like Slither and Super. It is fitting that The Toxic Avenger is screening the same year that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hit theaters (The Toxic Avenger currently does not have a release date), as they are very similar films that can trace their creative DNA from the same source.
Redefines What a Mature Superhero Story Is
When the 1984 Toxic Avenger came out, superheroes were part of the pop culture landscape, but they were not as dominant as they were before. They were still known as figures in comic books. Yet in 2023, they are still the most dominant form of pop culture entertainment from film and television. That means The Toxic Avenger is coming at an interesting time for the genre.
While audiences are used to the traditional superheroes, a new breed of stories that looks to dismantle the genre and offer a more "adult" orientated take on the material has emerged. From Zack Snyder's grim, gritty DC heroes who kill, to the world of The Boys that enjoys mocking many aspects of superhero pop culture, these have now become de facto representations of what it means for a superhero story to be "adult." The definition has unfortunately become 'disillusioned with the idea of superheroes, cynically mocking more sincere properties to show how childish they are.' It has now become so limited that for a superhero movie to be labeled for adults, it needs to adhere to a certain formula.
Sometimes, this works very effectively. The works of Alan Moore and certain elements of The Boys, Harley Quinn, Watchmen, and Invincible do a very good job of deconstructing the superhero myth for an audience that has grown up with it. Yet this is not the only way to tell a superhero story for adult-oriented audiences, and The Toxic Avenger takes a different approach. It is filled with blood and gore, and images parents would not want their children to see, but it also has an emotional heart that would fit right at home in any superhero story set within the MCU or a group of young kids.
C.S. Lewis famously said:
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence... When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
The Toxic Avenger is many things. It is a laugh-out-loud comedy, a grindhouse horror homage, but most importantly, it is a superhero film. This is a film that is very much in love with the idea of superheroes and knows these figures have meaning. The Toxic Avenger can have a scene where a goon's guts are ripped out of his butt, or toxic pee can pierce through metal, but at the core, it is a movie about how one man wants to do the right thing and do better not just by his kid but by the world. He is the change he wants to see in the world, and the film is how one person can make a difference.
The movie certainly is not nuanced, but it isn't trying to be. It is painting with broad strokes, making big swings in both comedy and emotion. There is an interesting dichotomy at play, one that is anarchistic and rebellious but also very old-fashioned in its beliefs. The monster is the hero, but a hero nonetheless. The Toxic Avenger is a champion of the people. He rallies the townspeople to take down corrupt officials and make the world a better place in a manner that would not be unnatural in a Spider-Man or Superman movie (maybe with fewer heads being torn off, though). Toxie is a superhero of the people in a world where corporations have so much control and the planet is being destroyed by pollution. He is a punk rock superhero, one for the outcasts who never felt like they belonged but still can if the world accepts them as they are.
In many ways, this is best summed up in the film's final moments, as a kid performs at a talent show and the audience is originally not interested, too 'cool' to enjoy it. But the crazier the antics get — and the kid is not afraid to embrace being weird, silly, and himself — the audience starts to enjoy the ride and becomes enthralled with the performance. Wear your heart on your sleeve, and embrace being who you are.
The Toxic Avenger can now be more effective being remade than if they tried to reboot it during the horror remake boom of the 2000s. It fits with the current superhero boom but works at deconstructing and building off traditional superheroes, and the hard-R "adult" oriented superhero story comments on the current state of the world. The tagline is right: a toxic world needs a toxic hero.