He was 98 lbs. of solid nerd until he became… THE TOXIC AVENGER!

Welcome to a brand-spankin’ new B-Movie Enema. As it were, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, my Enemaniacs! To celebrate, let’s visit Tromaville, New Jersey, the home of everyone’s B-movie uncle, Lloyd Kaufman. Kaufman and his producing partner Michael Herz co-directed this breakout film for Troma Entertainment.

Now, I’ve covered several movies released by Troma from within the distribution arm of Kaufman and Herz’s entertainment company. I’ve even covered a few other movies that featured Kaufman as an actor. Only once, though, did I ever cover a film actually funded, made, and released by the Troma team. I’ve not brought this one up for quite some time. It used to be one that I would reference often, and definitely compare to when I’d see a movie of a particular level of quality. Do you guys remember which one that was?

That one is the cinematic diarrhea disaster that was Pot Zombies.

That was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had watching a movie for this blog. Sure, back then, in my younger days of June 2016, only a couple months after the blog came back in full force, I would maybe play up some frustrations or overanalyze some stuff from time to time. Pot Zombies was NOT a movie I needed to play that shit up. It’s awful and still the very bottom of the barrel of movies I’ve ever covered on this site. There are other bad movies. A couple other REALLY bad movies. None like Pot Zombies.

So… Let’s make up for that with a movie from Troma that is every bit deserving of its praise. It’s my holiday gift to you, my lovely readers.

Troma Entertainment was formed in the 70s. Let’s not pretend that Kaufman and Herz started off trying to produce and direct straightforward dramas or period pieces. Oh no no no. They were making raunchy sex comedies. However, they did provide some support on the production side of things for one classy movie – Louis Malle’s My Dinner With Andre. But Herz and Kaufman were mostly interested in low-budget and silly movies that I think would best be described as either “sickos” or “splatter” films. Everything changed in 1984.

That’s when The Toxic Avenger was first released in New York City. We’ll talk more about the over-the-top aspects of that movie, but it served a very specific group of people. These were people who were fans of horror films of the late 70s and early 80s. But I wouldn’t call them uneducated, immature, or classless in terms of their tastes. The Toxic Avenger, and by extension Toxie, the main character, hit people similarly to how punk rock hit a lot of music fans. It felt more raw. It seemed self-aware. It was a time in which the nerdy loser became strong and powerful and the winner. In a lot of ways, it was a modern Incredible Hulk character. Toxie might have been ugly or whatever, but he was beloved by those he helped.

After The Toxic Avenger was released to the rest of the country in 1986, Troma was solidly on the map. Kaufman and Herz followed it up with Class of Nuke ‘Em High. Again, Troma had another silly little cult film to keep them going. In 1989, two Toxie sequels kept that series going. The 90s kicked off with another film I’m sure I will eventually get to, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.

The Troma train kept going. What may be the most interesting thing that came from Troma’s rise was the rise of Lloyd Kaufman as a new Roger Corman-like character in the world of B-movies. Corman, as I’ve talked about before, would work fast, cheap, and hard. He gave people opportunities to learn how to make movies and, in many cases, smart ways to keep things efficient and come in either under budget or on schedule. Kaufman went in a slightly different direction.

Kaufman became a massive cheerleader for creative types. He started publishing books about making movies. His most notable book that almost every indie filmmaker owns is Make Your Own Damn Movie! The biggest person that Kaufman helped land massive jobs, including now as one of the head guys making DC movies for Warner, is James Gunn. Gunn wrote a book in 1998 called All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I learned from The Toxic Avenger. Kaufman might not have the stable of guys that Corman has, but there’s not a room Kaufman could walk into where he wouldn’t have a lot of Hollywood so-and-sos wanting to chat with him and rub elbows.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of that is due to Kaufman’s wife, Pat Swinney Kaufman, is the executive director of the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development and the deputy commissioner of Empire State Development. So, in short, she has a lot of sway over whether or not TV shows or movies can be filmed in New York. She is NOT someone you get on the bad side of if you’re in the biz.

Anyway, Kaufman is still the figurehead and public face of Troma. I’ve seen him at the Troma booth at several conventions over the years and he is always happy to sign stuff or take pictures with fans. He’s something of a man of the people and the people love him for it. His zany, always irreverent humor is part of that public persona of his. It makes him especially approachable and easy to talk to. He’s so loved by fans of Troma, that there was once a public protest outside the 2013 Canne Film Festival to reward the company with some sort of recognition.

Each year, Troma puts together the Tromadance Festival. It used to be in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah during the same time as the Sundance Film Festival. Later, it was relocated to New Jersey, then to New York City, and now at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater in Leighton, Pennsylvania. Troma acts as an advisor to the filmmakers and usually distributes finished films onto DVD. Kaufman often appears as cameos in the movies and will give seminars about how to make movies. There are all sorts of satellite TromaDance festivals across the country, including right here in Indiana about 30 minutes south of me in Franklin.

But, we’re not here to talk festivals or dances or seminars. No! We’re here to talk Toxie. Let’s get a fuckin’ move on here with everyone’s favorite radioactive monster man hero – The Toxic Avenger!

The movie opens with a narrator telling us about New York City. It’s the town in which movers and shakers and all that shit run commerce and whatever. It’s a great city! Even more so because this is dirty as fuck New York City. This is 1980s slimy-ass NYC, baby! This is also highlighted by our narrator. For, you see, the trade-off for all that great commerce and metropolitan whatzits, there’s pollution. Green toxic sludgy pollution.

This is the era of movies that I freaking love, man. The Toxic Avenger is literally going to be made of this shit. A couple years after this, a guy is going to be doused in toxic chemicals and he’ll begin to melt until Robocop will come along and splatter him as if he’s made from the thinnest of thin water balloons. A couple years after that? Batman’s dropping Jack Napier into a pool of green liquid to create the Joker.

Movies of the 80s were loaded with a lot of cautionary shit. Toxic waste is always thick and green and will turn you into a monster. Nuclear bombs are practically dangling above you waiting for the Kremlin to snip the wires holding them over YOUR city. Every city had roving gangs just looking for trouble and needing Charles Bronson to put them in the fuckin’ ground. Stephen King-style bullies are practically waiting for you right outside your house to get your lunch money. These were the things I grew up hearing about.

I think I turned out just fine.

Meet Melvin Ferd Junko III. He is the janitor at the Tromaville Health Club. Tromaville is the “Toxic Waste Capital of the World” and Melvin’s whole world is about to be changed by that very goop.

I want to point out that our theme song, “Body Talk”, is performed by Sandy Farina. Now, that name is mostly forgotten to time. If anyone remembers Sandy, it’s for this theme song. However, a year after this movie’s release, she did appear on Star Search and eventually was the co-lead singer of the “Hands Across America” charity single. That event eventually led to the inspiration of the Jordan Peele horror film Us. I know Sandy Farina for a far different thing. In fact, it’s safe to say she was kind of always part of my world as I grew up. Farina played Strawberry Fields in the messy musical masterpiece that was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

That’s a movie in which she gets kidnapped by Aerosmith, dies when Peter Frampton tries to save her, and gets resurrected by Billy Preston. That’s fucking rad.

Anyway, Tromaville Health Club is an interesting place. Everyone in town apparently goes there. There’s certainly a hierarchy involved as well. There are dorky and fat and ugly people. They are often picked on, made fun of, or flat-out beaten up by pretty people. This does not bode well for poor ol’ Melvin.

As the four main assholes in the jacuzzi look on, they spot Melvin coming in and mopping up around the pool. Melvin loves his job, but the poor guy ain’t too bright. He mops over people’s heads and faces. He knocks people into the pool with his mop. He’s got the spirit, but his brain isn’t so good at actually doing the work. This GREATLY upsets our main bullies. In particular, Bozo, the leader of the gang, immediately yells, “I HATE THAT FUCKIN’ GUY!” Bozo and his pal, Slug, push Melvin around for dropping his mop into the jacuzzi. Bozo has to go pump some serious iron because Melvin has stressed him out to no end. Even Julie, Bozo’s girlfriend, yells at Melvin for even thinking about talking to her.

I LOVE the two main bullies, Bozo and Slug. They are so wildly cartoonish. It’s fantastic. Sometimes, the straightest path to knowing who the bad guys are and who needs to get their asses kicked is to just make them goofy as all get out. What’s more, Bozo and Slug are front-page news. They are serial hit-and-run murderers. Slug’s girlfriend, Wanda, is turned on by how fast they drive. Slug is turned on by the sound of broken bones.

In fact, that night, Bozo, Julie, Slug, and Wanda, are going to have a run-in with Skippy. Poor Skippy gets knocked off his bike. But, uh oh… He didn’t die. Bozo decides to finish him off by squashing his head like a goddamned watermelon. The girls celebrate by getting out of the car and snapping Polaroids of the kid’s lifeless body. Bozo wants to do more, but Slug has to go home to go to church in the morning.

Later, Melvin is caught watching Bozo, Julie, Slug, and Wanda playing racquetball. This, again, stresses Bozo out. Julie says she’s got an idea about how to fix Melvin for good. She finds him by the pool and tells him she’s got something she wants him to help her with. She wants him to come to the women’s locker room at 7pm tonight. That’s good for him because he’s gotta clean the toilet around that time in there anyway!

Alright, so the pieces are in place to create Tromaville’s superhero. Just before he meets Julie in the locker room, a couple guys transporting barrels of toxic waste come into town. They stop just outside the Tromaville Health Club to snort a shitload of cocaine. Inside, Melvin meets with Julie. She tells him she doesn’t want to date Bozo anymore. In fact, she wants to date Melvin. Not only that, but she wants to do it with him right now! There’s a problem though… Melvin’s not wearing her favorite color, pink. She gives him a tutu to wear while they do it. He protests at first, but, well, Julie is really hot and she seemingly is ready to go, so what’s a guy to do?

After putting on the tutu, he brings his mop to a darkened room. Julie guides him to her in the dark, but she’s led him to a sheep with makeup on. When the lights come on, everyone is in the club laughing at Melvin. He runs away, but they chase him to make fun of him. He jumps out of the window and head-first into a barrel of toxic waste. The stuff burns him but the people from the club only go down to the sidewalk to laugh more at him. Julie says he isn’t looking so good, but Bozo says he is faking it and can’t take a joke. The cops come to help Melvin, but his touch sets one of them on fire. He too eventually catches on fire and he runs away.

This is an amazing sequence. Okay, sure, it starts off funny. Julie tries to sweet-talk Melvin. And him walking with a little extra pep in his step with his tutu and mop is great. Then it turns into a horror movie as he’s laughed at and chased out onto the street. But for him to get to the street, he had to jump out and into that barrel of toxic waste. No one can touch him. No one can help him. It’s such a well-constructed sequence of events.

Eat your heart out, Marvel!

Melvin ran home. He’s in the bathroom moaning and groaning. His mother knocks on his door to see if he’s okay, but he’s trying to get the burning to stop. He jumps in the tub to stop it, but his hair is falling out and his skin is bubbling and changing his appearance.

The good news, though, is that Melvin’s transformation makes him taller and more muscular. It might have hurt. It might have come from a situation in which a horrible trick was played on him, but he’s a big strong dude now! His mom just thinks he’s finally reached puberty. That’s a pretty good joke considering how much comic book superheroes had some sort of a change that could, once upon a time, have been looked at as going through puberty. Anyway, Melvin, or Toxie as I’ll refer to him from here on out, takes off into the streets of Tromaville.

Later, a trio of thugs, led by “Cigar Face”, is counting out a bunch of money from their boss with which they plan to bribe a cop. They give the money to the cop, but the cop refuses the money. The cop pulls his gun, but the three thugs get the drop on him and start beating him up. Cigar Face gets his name from taking his cigars and burning people’s faces with them. That… That is pretty sound nomenclature if you ask me.

Just before Cigar Face blows the cop’s dick off his body, Toxie arrives to beat the shit out of the thugs. Cigar Face gets a punch in, but it hurts his hand. Toxie punches one guy’s face so hard it basically destroys it. He then pokes out the eyes of another thug. He picks Cigar Face up by his balls and throws him in a trash can, whales on his nuts some more, and then throws the garbage can away. As for the other two guys, Toxie bashes their heads together so hard, it crushes both their heads. He then uses his mop to clean up the mess that is their faces.

Toxie helps the stunned cop to his feet. While the cop is not sure what he saw or if Toxie is a good guy or truly a monster, Toxie apologizes for what he did to the thugs. He says he just didn’t know what came over him. The cop gets back to the station and the press asks him about what he saw. The cop has nothing but good things to say about Toxie. When the press asks Cigar Face, he just keeps going on and on about a monster.

The mayor of Tromaville, Peter Belgoody Goldberg, wants to know everything he can find out about Toxie. You see, the cop might have been on the up and up, but the mayor, with the help of the Nazi-esque police chief among others, is doing nothing but bad stuff. Mayor Goldberg was the guy Cigar Face referred to as working for when he tried to bribe the cop. He and his other two goons were Goldberg’s best pushers.

Meanwhile, Bozo, Julie, Slug, and Wanda are living it up. They think they are finally rid of that asshole janitor and boy did they ever fix him too! Speaking of, Toxie tries to go home to see his mother, but she is scared by what she sees at the door. Dejected, Toxie goes to the ol’ Tromaville dumping grounds. There, he builds himself a little home with what’s been left there.

These dumping grounds where Toxie is taking up residence are on Mayor Goldberg’s list of places to clean up and sell off as valuable waterfront properties. If they do that, though, that would mean the new toxic dump would be just twenty feet from the reservoir that serves all of Tromaville. This is definitely something Mayor Goldberg is aware of and has no issue having a big ol’ belly laugh about.

At the local Mexican restaurant, a group of bad guys plan to rob the joint. I love how much like a comic book this all plays out. Toxie has a terrible thing done to him that gives him his powers. Check. On his first night out, he deals with some street-level thugs and is witnessed by a cop who praises him as a hero. Check. He loses his family. Check. (Granted, his mother isn’t dead, she just can’t recognize little Melvin as big Toxie.) Now, he’s got a new group of people to take on and one of them, LeRoy, has facepaint on to just make him look that much more like a comic book goon.

I actually find it kind of amazing how perfectly inspired by comics this is. Surely, Lloyd Kaufman was a reader in his youth. Hell, he might even be a present-day comic book reader. There’s a deep understanding of how a hero comes to be, what generally would happen to him leading up to or after the thing that makes him that hero, and what are some of the ways he is then recognized for his good deeds, and the list goes on. Kaufman is having fun with this material. The movie is crass and kind of tasteless in all the good ways but also cares to do this right.

It’s hard to believe this movie was made about 40 years ago and would have had very little to base itself on in terms of popular superhero movies (just the first three Superman movies at that time). Kaufman would have had to pull directly from comic books as a medium to do this so well. If anyone tells you The Toxic Avenger is their favorite superhero movie, they wouldn’t be out of bounds to choose it.

Anyway, one of the people in the restaurant calls out to LeRoy and tells him to leave the rest of the people in the restaurant alone. Everyone will give them their money, just let people go. If they want, they can just take him hostage. LeRoy declines and kills the guy. They then spot a good-looking girl sitting by herself with her guide dog. The leader of the group, Frank, decides he wants to rape her. LeRoy kills her dog and Frank is about to get started on her when Toxie shows up and literally disarms Frank.

Toxie beats Frank with his own arm. Then, LeRoy and the third member, Rico, each try to take on Toxie, but they don’t have much luck either. Hilariously, Rico tries taking on Toxie with a samurai sword. Where did he get a samurai sword? Why, from the wall of the Mexican restaurant. Yeah, of course! If there’s one thing that Mexican establishments are known for is their displays of a pair of crossed samurai swords under a sombrero!

Frank is fucked. Rico gets thrown into the deep fryer. LeRoy is killed by having a milkshake made in his mouth and face. Just to put the bow on everything, Toxie throws Frank into the oven. He picks up the mops in the kitchen and mops the bad guys once again.

The blind girl at the restaurant is Sara. She begs Toxie to help her and take her out of there. Without her dog, she has no idea how she’ll make it. He takes her home. She makes food for him. She wants to touch his face so she has an idea of what her savior looks like. He refuses to allow her to touch his face, but he does let her read his palm. She tells him he’s going to be a really important man. She wants to read his other palm, but gets a handful of his giant Toxie dick.

The town learns about Toxie’s latest victory over bad guys. A neuroscientist comes in to explain to the press that the monster must have some compulsion to destroy evil since only bad guys have been attacked by the monster. Toxie’s next stop is the Tromaville Health Club. He finds one of the evil mayor’s goons who is dealing drugs and… Well…

Jesus Christ! Could you imagine how many heads could be smashed to the point of oblivion if Toxie and Leo Fong got together? Amazing. Remember, this movie was made on an incredibly low budget. Everything about the effects of this movie is perfect.

I do like how it seems, for the most part, that Wanda is completely unaware of what happened to that dude’s head. I like to think that the place just stayed open. That guy’s head is crushed, but fuck it… People have spin classes to go to and hip hop dance aerobics to perform, goddammit. Anyway, I say that because she’s in the sauna flickin’ her bean to a picture she took in there. Toxie finds her and, believe it or not, this is the first time we’ve actually seen his face. Every other scene has hidden his face until now when she pulls a towel off his head thinking it’s Slug playing a trick on her.

Toxie grabs Wanda and tosses her onto the hot coals in the sauna. After dealing with a couple baddies at the health club, Toxie’s gotta relieve himself. So he goes out into the alley and pisses a giant, thick stream of green pee. While he’s out there doing that, a limo pulls up and a pimp yells at Toxie asking if he’d like some young pussy. By young… YOUNG. He says the girl’s only 12 years old. She will also only cost twelve bucks. He starts whaling on the bad guy, and a bunch of the pimp’s goons pour out of the limo, but Toxie gets rid of them easily and issues a warning that things gotta change around here.

A heroic montage happens to show that Toxie is a good guy. First, he saves a couple kids from Slug and Bozo running them down. Then, he helps a little old lady across the street. He opens a bottle of popcorn seeds that also pops thanks to his radioactive grip. The town is becoming rather enamored with Toxie. They even make shirts that say “I Love the Monster!” The scientist comes back to say that Toxie is so good at destroying evil, that the prison is now overflowing. The mayor and his lieutenants decide to try to kill Toxie before he kills them. That backfires when the six guys, Cigar Face included, surround him, but he jumps up before they all shoot their guns causing them to shoot each other.

In other news, Toxie and Sara are getting along splendidly! They’re even having a pretty healthy sexual relationship. She cooks for him. He eventually has her move into his junkyard home. Despite the jokes about her being blind or him being an ugly monster, etc., the whole Toxie and Sara thing is really cute if I’m being totally honest. I have to think this is yet another direct call back to comics as Ben Grimm, the Fantastic Four’s Thing, eventually fell in love with the blind Alicia Masters. Of course, the big thing about the Thing was his self-loathing about being turned into an ugly rock monster. Her being blind kind of curbed his self-consciousness about being ugly because she “saw” something different when she touched him.

I digress.

Toxie has returned to the Tromaville Health Club to get revenge on Julie. He starts strangling her and saying he’s going to teach her a lesson she won’t ever forget, but he’s interrupted by another girl coming out of the shower and screaming. He chases her to the boiler room where she thinks she’s barricaded herself in a room for safety, but Toxie busts through. He reveals a pair of scissors and starts to lower it toward her.

Meanwhile, Julie is stressing Bozo out. She’s not here with the car and he needs to drive it, presumably to run someone over. They see a little old lady getting out of her car with her groceries. They pretend to offer the old lady help, but they just beat her to death and steal her car. Toxie shows up and they try running him down, but he jumps up and grabs hold of the top of the car on the roof.

Toxie strangles Slug and throws him out of the car where he dies. He gets into the car and tells Bozo who he really is. Now, I agree that Toxie should be dealing with Bozo. He’s a dick and should get some righteous vengeance visited upon him. However, in the struggle in the car, Toxie does kind of cause some other collateral damage. But whatever, man! He rips that fucking steering wheel off the car and it flies off a cliff where it eventually explodes and kills Bozo.

That’s some solid work there, Toxie.

Even though Toxie’s dealt with the mayor’s goons, and those guys in the Mexican restaurant, and killed the four who pulled the joke that made him what he is today, he’s not done killing folks. He goes to a dry cleaner where a little person lady is waiting to get her son’s cum-encrusted jeans cleaned after his hot date the night before. He throws her into a washing machine and kills her. The paper reports that he killed an innocent woman.

Toxie returns home and pours his heart out to Sara. He tells her he worries he’s out of control. They decide to go somewhere that they might be able to be alone with no other people around to tempt him to kill again. Reading about the little old lady Toxie killed gets the mayor excited. That’s until his police chief tells him that the lady is not a pillar of the community everyone thinks she is. In fact, the lady was the head of a white slavery ring.

Mayor Goldberg dispatches his police chief to hunt Toxie and kill him. Clancy, the cop Toxie saved earlier, asks why they are going to kill the monster. Without the monster, he’d be dead. Himmel, the chief, says they are to shoot to kill. A couple cops find Toxie and Sara camping in a field. They report it to the chief who then reports it to the mayor. He calls for the National Guard to come out to Tromaville.

The people of Tromaville are terrified about the National Guard rolling through the streets. Some of them don’t think Toxie should be killed. They think he should be given a medal. The National Guard and the whole town surround Toxie and Sara’s tent. The town pleads with the mayor and the chief of police. Even Melvin’s mom comes to plead for her son’s life. When Toxie comes out of the tent, the mayor orders people to fire, but the members of the town that Toxie saved, stand in the way of the firing line. Even the National Guard won’t shoot.

The mayor decides to deal with Toxie himself, but Toxie decides two things: 1) he’s gonna find out if the mayor has any guts at all and 2) he’s going to have the one good cop, Clancy, deal with the toxic trash.

The town rallies around Toxie and Sara and Tromaville is now a safe place for people to live, free from bad guys and a shitty mayor!

The Toxic Avenger really is a great movie. Is it silly? Yes. Is it kind of gross? Oh, sure. Does it have the Lloyd Kaufman crassness? Most definitely. But you know what? It’s a really honest and earnest attempt at telling a fairly decent superhero origin story. Again, if anyone said this was among the best superhero genre movies, and, especially, origin story films, that person would be perfectly fine making that statement.

It’s really amazing how good this movie looks. Sure, it definitely is a lower-budget film. In fact, the movie was made for about a half million bucks. Yet, look at Toxie. Look at Melvin’s transformation. Look at some of the death effects (i.e. the guy who got his head smashed). These are fantastic effects and everything looks exceptionally professional in those departments.

On top of that, the movie is funny. It’s enjoyable to watch in general. It’s generally a great movie and it is a franchise I will be returning to in time.

Before I wrap things up and celebrate some Christmas and Holiday business, I do want it to be stated that I wrote this review well in advance of the release of the 2023 remake/reboot/re-imagining of The Toxic Avenger. I even wrote this in front of any trailers being released for it. That said, Peter Dinklage is a great choice to play our new version of the hero. I do think there is enough evidence that the new filmmaker, Macon Blair, is taking this seriously to make it silly and something that is a decent update of the 40-year-old franchise. I’m definitely going to give it a chance. If it doesn’t work out, no big deal. This one does plenty for me already.

Let’s put a bow on this gift to the cinema and look forward to next weekend, as we close out 2023 with one last long overdue movie to be covered at B-Movie Enema. Join me next Friday as I take a look at the 1986 sci-fi teen picture Solarbabies! I’m gonna guess this is not going to be super fun for me because if you know the story behind the movie then you know it was a hard time on set. Come back to learn more!

Until then, be sure you take out the trash, love your mama, and always have a burning, innate desire to destroy evil!