The Toxic Avenger!

My plans changed yesterday quite by accident. While shopping at the local discount store for a few groceries, I checked out the bargain racks of movies. Things have been pretty slim there for some time. I found a few gems from the 80's, not a decade I normally collect. One was Strange Invaders , a quiet but surprisingly tense tale of alien invasion and smalltown America. The other was Toxic Avenger from Troma Pictures.

I saw this one time, many years ago after renting it on tape. I've never owned a copy of Toxic Avenger in any format, nor have I seen the two sequels. This is a fun but blistering movie. I don't have anything against boobs in a movie, they are great with me, and this movie offers up several handsome sets. There are several other sexual situations, but mostly the movie is infamous for its lurid violence.

There are no fewer than two heads utterly crushed on screen and assorted thugs have their eyes gouged out, skulls ripped off, guts plucked out, and so on and so forth. It's crude, but the special effects are so primitive that it has an almost school play charm to it. This movie is Halloween for sure, there's no way it's real, or pretends to be even in the moment.

The violence and the crude humor make for a shameless good time. Toxic Avenger (never called that in the actual movie save at the very end because the title postdates the movie's production) is a hero, a reluctant one who is torn between his desire to live a normal life (which for him means setting housekeeping in a garbage dump with his blind girlfriend) and his compulsion to hunt down and kill villains, which he does with gusto.

This movie was made for less than cheap, and it shows. The movie also is stranded helplessly in the decade of the 80's. The fashions scream, especially the lame health club gear that folks used to sport. Sheesh, what outlandish garb it was!

I enjoyed the movie, and enjoyed it even more with the director's commentary. Lloyd Kaufmann, the guy who came up with the original concept is all over this dvd. He leads a tour of the Troma studios, a tongue-in-cheek bit of low comedy, and he does a very lively commentary with the expected behind-the-scenes stuff but also some sharp criticism of some folks involved. This movie has lots of extras, and I recommend it. It's not for everyone though, so be warned.

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