The Toxic Avenger starts with a shot of the New York City skyline. A narration informs us that 'New York City, the worlds capital of culture & industry. Here, among the towering skyscraper's, civilisation is guided by men of progress & the wonders of technology. But for all this industrial advancement there is a price to pay. Pollution, the unavoidable byproduct of todays society, every year millions of gallons of poisonous wastes, garbage & radioactive chemicals are disposed of in nearby towns such as Tromaville the toxic waste dumping capital of the world. Our story takes place at the Tromaville health club where a young man named Melvin Furd (forget what the IMDb says, it's definitely Furd not Junko) works. Melvin's entire life, in fact entire being was changed by toxic chemical waste...' Melvin (Mark Torgl) is a real loser, nerd & all round wimp. Melvin is a mop boy at the the Tromaville health club & everyone makes fun of him, especially four local thugs named Bozo (Gary Schneider) his girlfriend Julie (Cindy Manion) plus Slug (Robert Prichard) & his girlfriend Wanda (Jennifer Prichard as Jennifer Babtist). One day the four decide to play a cruel practical joke on Melvin & humiliate him in front of as many people as possible. However things go wrong, or right depending on whichever way you look at it I suppose, & Melvin ends up head first in a barrel of hazardous toxic waste. As a consequence Melvin mutates into the Toxic Avenger (Mitch Cohen as Mitchell Cohen), wow. After saving an Irish cop named Officer O'Clancy (Dick Martinsen) from a gang of three thugs, Cigarface (Dan Snow), Knuckles (Doug Isbecque) & Nipples (Charles Lee Jr.) Toxie discovers that he enjoyed being a hero & so decides to clean Tromaville up by single-handedly wiping out the evil forces which contaminate the town. Mayor Belgoody (Pat Ryan as Pat Ryan Jr.) is as bent as they come & starts to notice a drop in his profit margins from his illegal activity, he puts pressure on the Chief of police (David N. Weiss as David Weiss) to find the Toxic Avenger & kill him before Toxie finds & kills them...
Directed by Micheal Herz & Lloyd Kaufman as Samuel Weil I thought The Toxic Avenger was one seriously brain-dead film made for idiots by idiots, you can take that anyway you like considering that I actually quite liked it. The script by Joe Ritter is as stupid as you can imagine, this thing makes the Police Academy films (1984 - 94) look like the pinnacle of sophistication! The jokes are really dumb & moronic, furthermore it stretches the boundaries of acceptability & taste. The Toxic Avenger pokes fun at blind people, beating old ladies up, running children over & going back to crush their heads while later on in the film a woman masturbates over some photographs of the incident & putting a dwarf into a washing machine & turning it on. The sort of comedy you can expect in The Toxic Avenger isn't exactly classy either like someone putting a snake down a fitness instructors top & his class copying his silly movements as he tries to grab it or Toxie's blind girlfriend Sara (Andree Maranda) making him a sandwich filled with Draino. Subtle obviously isn't a word in director's Herz & Kaufman's vocabulary. There is some over-the-top violence & gore, a squashed head, ripped off arm, fried hands, shotgun blasted guide dogs, intestine ripping, beatings & a bit where a guy has his head crushed by some weights but it's all rather fake looking & presented in a slapstick sort of way. Tecnically The Toxic Avenger is awful, the acting is terrible as is the cinematography, editing as continuity obviously wasn't an important issue for the filmmakers & overall production values. There are some reasonable, if cheap looking, car stunts in a brief action sequence as well. Having said all that I did actually find some of it quite amusing (I'm not sure what that say's about me) & in a fun sort of way it, for the most part, works as a whole. It's very well paced, something is always happening whether it's an outrageous bad taste joke or just some good old fashioned violence & gore. I can't really recommend The Toxic Avenger as a good film but it did keep me entertained throughout & that's all I was hoping for, I mean I didn't expect high art, or an educational thought provoking study of modern society did I?! Fun, but an acquired taste & only for those with the stomach.
Directed by Micheal Herz & Lloyd Kaufman as Samuel Weil I thought The Toxic Avenger was one seriously brain-dead film made for idiots by idiots, you can take that anyway you like considering that I actually quite liked it. The script by Joe Ritter is as stupid as you can imagine, this thing makes the Police Academy films (1984 - 94) look like the pinnacle of sophistication! The jokes are really dumb & moronic, furthermore it stretches the boundaries of acceptability & taste. The Toxic Avenger pokes fun at blind people, beating old ladies up, running children over & going back to crush their heads while later on in the film a woman masturbates over some photographs of the incident & putting a dwarf into a washing machine & turning it on. The sort of comedy you can expect in The Toxic Avenger isn't exactly classy either like someone putting a snake down a fitness instructors top & his class copying his silly movements as he tries to grab it or Toxie's blind girlfriend Sara (Andree Maranda) making him a sandwich filled with Draino. Subtle obviously isn't a word in director's Herz & Kaufman's vocabulary. There is some over-the-top violence & gore, a squashed head, ripped off arm, fried hands, shotgun blasted guide dogs, intestine ripping, beatings & a bit where a guy has his head crushed by some weights but it's all rather fake looking & presented in a slapstick sort of way. Tecnically The Toxic Avenger is awful, the acting is terrible as is the cinematography, editing as continuity obviously wasn't an important issue for the filmmakers & overall production values. There are some reasonable, if cheap looking, car stunts in a brief action sequence as well. Having said all that I did actually find some of it quite amusing (I'm not sure what that say's about me) & in a fun sort of way it, for the most part, works as a whole. It's very well paced, something is always happening whether it's an outrageous bad taste joke or just some good old fashioned violence & gore. I can't really recommend The Toxic Avenger as a good film but it did keep me entertained throughout & that's all I was hoping for, I mean I didn't expect high art, or an educational thought provoking study of modern society did I?! Fun, but an acquired taste & only for those with the stomach.