MOVIE REVIEW! - "The Toxic Avenger" (2025)

In 1974, Lloyd Kaufman and friend Michael Herz created Troma Entertainment, a small indie studio that soon became known for their low-budget B movies and splatter films that more than pushed the envelope of what was tasteful at the time. In 1984, Troma Entertainment released “The Toxic Avenger” and it quickly became their best known film. The movie spawned a few sequels and even a Saturday morning cartoon called “Toxic Crusaders”

Today, Troma is still kicking it as the oldest known indie film studio that’s not only still around but still independent. Unsurprisingly, Troma decided that they wanted to reboot their most coveted movie.

Thankfully, Troma along with Legendary Entertainment have brought us an exquisite horror comedy splatter film that lives up to the legacy. In the new movie, Peter Dinklage plays Winston Gooze, a janitor for a massive evil corporation called BTH. Winston also has a stepson, Wade (Jacob Tremblay), that he is trying to take care of since Wade’s mother recently passed away.

Unfortunately, for Winston, he learns that he has terminal brain cancer. When his evil boss, Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon), has him fired instead of helping him, Winston attempts to steal money from the company.

Peter Dinklage is about to go through a wild transformation in "The Toxic Avenger"!

In another turn of events, though, he has a run-in with a young woman named JJ Doherty (Taylour Page), someone who is trying to expose BTH’s corruption and he ends up getting the short end of the stick when the goons chasing after JJ end up throwing him into a vat of toxic waste.

Of course, a new hero is born that soon becomes known as the Toxic Avenger! Now, Winston not only has to contend with Bob’s men including his little brother, Fritz (Elijah Wood), but also several other bad men who have ties with Bob.

Now, that may seem like I’ve given away a lot, but that’s just the set up for what has to be one of the best horror comedy splatter films that I’ve seen in some time. Dinklage is great as Toxie (and kudos to Luisa Guerreiro in the Toxie suit) and he knows not just to play to the humor inherent in the role, but he also remembers that this movie has a weird sort of heart in the middle of it with a man who just wants to care for his son.

Never fear, Toxie is here to save the day!

His supporting cast is great as well including Paige as JJ. Paige is sort of the “straight” character to all the weirdness that’s happening around her but she also has quite a few funny moments herself.

Bacon also knows the assignment here and plays Bob big and proud but he never takes it too over-the-top for his performance to be a distraction. This movie is essentially a gory live-action cartoon and he plays that for everything its worth. Wood is also great as his creepy balding brother Fritz and Wood is also game for what’s featured in this zany script.

Then there is the world that all these people live in: St. Roma’s Village. This fictional city is a cartoon world come to life as well. Often, you don’t just find yourself laughing at the main characters onscreen. There are plenty of times that something happens or is said in the background that gets your attention and your laughs and this feels like a surprisingly lived in world.

I suppose the only thing I could criticize with this movie is that it’s always going to go for the joke no matter how cheap the joke is. That means that there are plenty of jokes that don’t quite stick the landing. But again, that’s inevitable with a movie that has this much goofball antics.

Another topic to note is that this is a crazy gory film with plenty of crude blood and guts. Now, for me, this is just what makes a good splatter film, but there are those out there that don’t like gore of any type in their films. So I’m just noting that there was plenty of fake blood sacrificed in order to make this movie.

I’ll admit, I was a little concerned when they said that they were rebooting Toxie as I am concerned when most remakes or reboots are announced. And then the film sat on a shelf for two years, which also led to some concern with how the final film turned out. 

Thankfully, the movie is out now and I’m happy to report that “The Toxic Avenger” is a great movie for fans of the original and fans of anything bloody and funny, often at the same time. Welcome back, Toxie!