Movie Janitors,
Oh man we did it again. We let Cote pick… and he chose a Troma movie again. We watched “The Toxic Avenger” the movie that pretty much started the Troma-verse. I’m not such a fan of these films. I think its the weird combination of low production values, horror effects and weird humor that just doesn’t click with me. But I see the draw… if you leave out the humor you have that movie “Street Trash” we watched, which was… difficult.
Facts
- Budget $500,000
- Box office $800,000
- The film has generated a media franchise including three film sequels, a stage musical production, a video game and a children’s TV cartoon.[3] Two less successful sequels, The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, were filmed as one.
- In 2019, it was announced that Legendary Pictures would be making a reboot of the film, with original creators Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment serving as producers, and Macon Blair serving as writer and director.
- The setting of the movie in a health club and the movie was given a working title of Health Club Horror.
- Keith Phipps from The A.V. Club was highly critical of the film, writing, “As for the movie itself, it’s still a piece of trash, if a marginally entertaining one: It’s too self-consciously parodic to be good kitsch, and too gross to be all that fun.”
Recap
The plot is kind of tedious without seeing the outfits or effects or ‘acting’.
So we meet this gang of punks driving around town and playing a game where they kill people for points. They seem very concerned about the points and less about anything else. They spy Melvin riding his bike and they miss him the first time, but turn around and REALLY get him. But he doesn’t die and they just kind of let him go. So then we meet Melvin at the Sexiest Health Club where he works as a jizz mopper. But in the most unbelievable part of the movie the gang of sleazy gutter punks are also healthy freaks and love racquetball.
They are still really concerned about ‘getting’ Melvin.. you know… for plot reasons. So they decide to trick him into thinking that the pretty girl likes him. He totally falls for it and to convince him that he needs to put on a full leotard with tutu she shows him her boobs. You forget what boobs looked like in the 80’s… these are the greatest tan lines in the history of film. He puts on the tutu and they trick him into kissing a sheep or something… and then he falls into a barrel that is full of toxic waste… it’s probably important… they all laugh at him and he melts a little and grows taller and has muscles and a clear powerful voice. Melvin was borderline retarded… so what the movie is saying is this is the best thing that ever happened to him.
He immediately goes on a revenge streak and since pretty much every other character is bad. This takes the rest of the movie to complete. He saves the only good cop in town from being castrated. There’s a long sequence where a gang of reject characters from ‘The Warriors’ robs a taco bell and he kills them all. Including beating one of them to death with his own arm. In one thing I noticed, they always make fun of the fat guys, the ‘chef’ has his gut hanging out and they have strategically placed lettuce in his belly button. He saves a blind lady from being raped and she she becomes his girlfriend. so if you had rape on the bingo card.. check that one off.
Smash cut to one of the female gang members masturbating to photos of a dead kid, cause… reasons.
Speed Round!
- The mayor is revealed to be the leader of all the gangs in town.
- Toxie kills the mom of one of the gang members.. but it’s revealed that shes a ‘white slaver’.
- The mayor calls in the national guard.
- Toxie and his girlfriend move into a tent in the swamp.
- They are surrounded by the national guard… who, in an insult to the word comedy… have snuck up on a blind woman in a tent with fucking tanks.
- They are going to shoot, but the townspeople of Tromaville rise up and stop them.
- Then Toxie rips out the intestines of the mayor in full view of everyone, WHICH IS NOT A CRIME? Everyone cheers! and he vows to continue fighting crime, freeze frame ending, smiles all around.
I’m pretty sure every female character is featured in a bikini at some point. Even his girlfriend. There doesn’t seem to be any consequences for.. anything… in this movie. The cops aren’t looking for a gang that’s straight mowing people down with their cars and Toxie rips out the guts of a guy in front of a crowd and.. gets cheers. This movie is an artifact of the 80’s. I guess it has a place as that. It sort of ages well since it was shitty in the first place and it’s still shitty.
Anyway.
I’m up for a movie tonight if anyone wants to join.
-Mark
The Toxic Avenger is a 1984 American superhero black comedy splatter film directed by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman (credited as Samuel Weil) and written by Kaufman and Joe Ritter. It is the first installment of The Toxic Avenger franchise. The film was released by Troma Entertainment, known for producing low budget B-movies with campy concepts and gruesome violence. Virtually ignored upon its first release, The Toxic Avenger caught on with filmgoers after a long and successful midnight movie engagement at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village in late 1985. It is now regarded as a cult classic.
The film has generated a media franchise including three film sequels, a stage musical production, a video game and a children's TV cartoon.[3] Two less successful sequels, The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, were filmed as one. Director Lloyd Kaufman realized that he had shot far too much footage for one film and re-edited it into two. A third independent sequel was also released, titled Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. An animated children's TV series spin-off, Toxic Crusaders, featured Toxie as the leader of a team of mutated superheroes who fought against evil alien polluters. The cartoon series was short-lived and quickly cancelled. New Line Cinema had planned a live-action film based on the cartoon, but the project was never produced.[citation needed]
In 2019, it was announced that Legendary Entertainment would be producing a reboot of the film, with original creators Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment serving as producers, and Macon Blair serving as writer and director.[4]
source : wikipedia