Thanks, Toxie!: Revisiting Troma’s ‘The Toxic Avenger’
With superhero media as prevalent as it is these days, it’s easy to take some of the genre’s more unusual ideas for granted. For instance, while darker characters like Hellboy and Blade are now just as popular as their kid-friendly colleagues (with even the debut of James Gunn’s vision for the DCEU coming in the form of a hyper-violent TV show about a team of monsters), there was a time when most of the successful superheroes followed a wholesome formula.
Of course, there will always be industry rebels, and when it comes to superhero movies, I can’t think of a more disruptive example than Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s 1984 classic, The Toxic Avenger. With the film celebrating its 40th anniversary this year (not to mention a finished remake scheduled for release later this year), I think this is the perfect opportunity to look back on a highly entertaining schlock-fest that was much more influential than most people think.
Founded in 1974 by New York filmmakers Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, Troma Entertainment began as a tiny production company that specialized in sleazy sex comedies and outsourcing production teams. It was during these early days of the company that Kaufman would come up with a story about a monster wreaking havoc at a health club, inspired by the people he met while supervising pre-production on the original Rocky.
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While this initial horror flick was never produced, Kaufman would later revisit the idea alongside Herz in order to prove a point. After coming across an article at the Cannes Film Festival that claimed that monster movies were waning in popularity, the filmmakers decided to turn the genre on its head by transforming their monster into a hero. This is how Health Club Horror became The Toxic Avenger, with the filmmaking duo managing to scrounge together a budget of $500,000 after Troma stumbled onto a couple of unexpected hits.
In the finished film (which was shot across the river in New Jersey for budgetary reasons), we follow a young health club janitor named Melvin (Mark Torgl) as he’s tormented by psychopathic bullies in the town of Tromaville. When a cruel prank goes terribly wrong, Melvin falls into a barrel of radioactive waste and emerges as a super-powered monster (Mitch Cohen/Kenneth Kessler) with an uncontrollable compulsion to fight crime.
Despite the flick’s current success among fans of underground cinema, The Toxic Avenger’s original 1984 release went mostly unnoticed, with the movie only developing a serious fanbase after a series of successful midnight showings throughout 1985. It was then rereleased in 1986 with a bigger marketing push, which is how Toxie became the trashy icon he is today.
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Of course, there’s a lot more to this film than blood, guts, and pulpy heroism. Despite its farcical presentation and overall bad taste, Toxie’s origin story presciently critiques narrative tropes that would only become more popular as superhero media became more lucrative. From the exaggerated glorification of vigilante violence to the idea that there’s no point in cleaning up street criminals if our institutions continue to profit off crime, it’s no coincidence that the main character is initially depicted as a slasher villain rather than something out of Marvel or DC. Hell, Toxie’s irradiated DNA even makes him physically incapable of allowing evil to occur in his vicinity, with this absurd premise satirizing the objectivist rhetoric that usually informs superhero narratives.
The film also marks the beginning of Troma’s increasingly ecological attitude, with the script framing the illegal dumping of toxic waste as the ultimate sin of the corrupt mayor’s criminal empire. This is something that would become a running theme throughout the franchise.
Naturally, this wouldn’t be Troma’s only attempt at re-inventing superheroes, with the success of The Toxic Avenger leading to a series of sequels and even the highly underrated Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.. But none of these films could recreate the perfect storm of 1980s excess and radioactive naiveté that spawned Toxie. Funnily enough, it was an animated cartoon adaptation/expansion of the original movie that came the closest to replicating that initial success.
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While 1991’s Toxic Crusaders was a deeply toned-down revision of the source material, doubling down on the ecological elements and incorporating all of the exaggerated marketing tropes that turned shows like Street Sharks and Biker Mice From Mars into half-hour advertisements for increasingly absurd toy lines, it also introduced Toxie to a whole new generation that was delighted to discover that this colorful cartoon was based on an R-rated gore-fest.
In fact, while critics often complained that Toxic Crusaders was nothing more than a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip-off, the original concept of the TMNT was almost certainly influenced by The Toxic Avenger. Troma’s sequels even had Toxie traveling to Japan, with the increased focus on martial arts action (a hallmark of plenty of superhero media of the time) also likely serving as an inspiration for Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s superhero parody.
The concept of radioactive waste as a narrative McGuffin was already at the forefront of popular culture when The Toxic Avenger was first released (think of films like C.H.U.D. or even the climax of Jason Takes Manhattan), with radioactivity having been used to create both fictional heroes and villains as far back as the 1950s. However, Toxie was the first character to depict this process as a source of body horror, an idea that really resonated with jaded 1980s audiences.
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That’s why it’s no surprise that we’d see even more super-powered gross-out characters after Toxie, with horror-adjacent creations like Darkman and even the Venom films owing a huge debt to Troma’s original attempt at a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength.
In a heartwarming case of a story coming full circle, the success of Troma’s first superhero (from New Jersey) also allowed them to expand future productions and hire more up-and-coming filmmakers. One of their most notable employees was none other than the aforementioned James Gunn (who even touched on some of the same super-hero critiques in his 2010 film Super).
Whether or not Macon Blair’s Toxic Avenger remake will be a big enough hit to re-introduce the character to mainstream audiences, the original Toxie will live on in our hearts as a highly influential piece of trash cinema that feels just as relevant today as it did 40 years ago. The Toxic Avenger may feature some problematic characters and jokes that have aged like raw milk, but the flick’s gross-out humor and endearing main character will keep us returning to Tromaville for at least another four decades.
Categorized:Editorials
