The Toxic Avenger
The movie that started Troma Entertainment, a cult classic for B grade horror films.
The Toxic Avenger released in 1985 is an American cult classic of hollywood 'B' grade movies. If you ever look up tasteless horror you will find The Toxic Avenger to be at the top of the list, Why? Well Toxic Avenger was the movie that started Troma Entertainment, a breeding ground for movies of different taste. Troma Entertainment is well known for its overly graphic violence, sex scenes and generally crude humour. They produce horror movies that are distgustingly hillarious, with all kinds of stupid ideas for the plot. Some of their movies include, 'Surf Nazis must die' and 'Nuke em High.'
(I have seen Surf Nazis by the way and it's very good.)
Toxic Avenger follows the story of poor mistreated Melvin, the mop boy at the local gym, who just doesn't fit in with the beautiful cool people of Tromaville. His nerdy traits make even the best of nerds, blush.
One day a prank on Melvin goes horribly wrong and Melvin ends up covered in toxic waste. From here Melvin transforms into a super strong toxic waste green monster, and with it his alter ego. Soon Melvin is known as something of a toxic avenger, dealing out justice to the bad citizens of Tromaville.
The Toxic Avenger is the icon movie for Troma entertainment. There have been a numer of sequels but I've heard that fans of Troma entertainment weren't impressed with the follow ups. New Line Cinema also had a deal to make a live action film based on the cartoon series 'Toxic Crusaders' where there's a whole gang of crime fighting mutants and Toxie being the leader. But the deal was ultimately cancelled.
Toxic Avenger was also made into a comic series with Marvel comics and a novelization by the director Lloyd Kaufman, Toxic Avenger: The Novel.
Then again from this spawned two musicals, and another book about Toxie and other Troma characters called, Lloyd Kaufman presents: The Toxic Avenger an other Tromatic Tales released last year.
I definitely agree that Toxic Avenger and other Troma movies aren't for everyone. But I really enjoyed this, and other Troma movies I have seen. One aspect that works well is that Toxic Avenger and other movies of Troma are filmed in the 80s, with its crazy big hair and fashion sense that screams tacky. You can't help but laugh harder.
