Horrorfest 2012: The Toxic Avenger

I first heard of the B-movie schlockmeisters at Troma in the pages of Filmfax magazine, that newsprint Godsend of all things cult and classic, one of my few gateways to the world of psychotronic cinema in the days before the Internet came into its own.

In the 90s, Troma released TROMEO AND JULIET, a sleazy, anarchic, punk-rock, gutter-trash attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Baz Luhrman ROMEO + JULIET that was so successful. It was praised in the pages of Filmfax, so I took their word for it, rented the movie, and was... appalled? Embarrassed?

I guess it wasn't so much the content of TROMEO AND JULIET that disturbed me. It was how shitty the movie was. It was clearly thrown together on a shoe string with absolutely no signs of ambition or creativity. Just images put in front of a video camera. I'd sat through shit before, but this was the bottom of the barrel.

Still, the studio name Troma kept popping up here and there and I thought, hey, maybe they started out with some quality flicks and really had something to say, and then descended into trash in their later years.

So, that's just a long-winded way of getting to the point where I watched THE TOXIC AVENGER the other night, probably the most famous Troma flick and one of the first. And it was still terrible. There was no descent to trash -- it was trash from the beginning. To be fair, I guess that's what people like about the stuff that comes out of Troma, but also to be fair, that is dumb.

Anyway, THE TOXIC AVENGER is the story of a nerd (Mark Torgl) who is picked on by the hunks and babes who frequent the health club he works at as a janitor to the point that they eventually end up dumpig him into toxic waste. He emerges with hideous burns and boils on his flesh, somehow grows in stature and strength, develops a kind of Spidey-sense for misdeeds occurring nearby, and becomes The Toxic Avenger (Mitch Cohen in body, Kenneth Kessler in voice).

The Toxic Avenger goes about splitting his time between cleaning up the town by fighting gangsters and muggers, and hunting down the gang who wronged him. On the side, he romances a blind woman (Andree Maranda) who he rescues mid-rape. Lots of shitty blind jokes ensue.

The unique thing about the Toxic Avenger as a "superhero" is that he dispatches the villains in particularly gruesome and murderous ways, the likes of which Freddy and Jason would be proud of. The crooked mayor (Pat Ryan, Jr.) puts a hit out on the Toxic Avenger, and it isn't long before the national guard is called in. The movie and the citizens of town want the Toxic Avenger saved because of his good deeds in cleaning up the town, but I wasn't so sure. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the Toxic Avenger was... taken care of?

The movie attempts to be a parody, but it's not funny or smart enough for that, and most of the good will goes out the window with the extensive gore and general mean-spirited tone of the whole affair. I'm a fan of grass roots film success stories in which independently-minded mavericks take on the system and get their vision out there while breaking all the rules, but I'm not a fan of movies with the kind of editing mistakes I used to make when I was 9.