The toxic avenger

The toxic avenger

The toxic avenger.... holy shit what do I say about this one... made in 1984 and on the budget of nothing this is one of them most haywire, gory, hilarious, cringe inducing 'superhero' movies you will ever see. it follows the story of Melvin a skinny unpopular guy who mops up at the local pool, he gets on the temper of the local jocks who bully him into falling into a convenentialy placed barrel of nuclear waste and turns into ZE TOXIC AVENGER!!! an unfortunate looking monster that strangely has a different actor for his voice. He runs around town fighting crime and getting his own back on the bullies that tormented him, gets the girl you know the rest. 

Best bit

Too much to choose from, too much cheese! really bad one liners, some pretty cool special effects like when he gets dumped in the toxic waste then runs home and starts mutating is pretty cool. Also there's a fight with a random street gang and one of them is in drag for no apparent reason?! what the hell! I love the eighties! what kind of eighties film would it be without a montage? they were all over the place then and with scarface coming out the previous year it was inevitable, gotta have a montaaaaage.In this specific montage there's a scene of toxy ( I think that's his name you never really hear it ) faces the city in the background and throws his  fists at it in a 'come at me bro' fashion, Epic. Not to mention the gore! there's so much of it! there was a deleted scene where the gang of bullies drive around on a Friday night looking for people to run over (what else ya gonna do sure?) and run over a kid and his head explodes all over the road, it looked very real and graphic like something from the news!

Worst bit

If your looking for a film with production this isn't it. The editing is actually horrendous and its not even trying to be funny its just done really bad, jerky cuts really throw you off at times but that's the only real flaw, some people might consider the acting terrible but that's part of the films charm. also it hasn't aged very well, only made in eighty four and looks pretty crap.This isn't a B movie, its a Z!

What it means to me

I vaguely remember seeing this on television one night when I was very young, I remember Melvin falling into the acid and my dad kept changing the channel and I kept wanting him to go back to see what happened.Always stayed up late to watch what horrible films I could get away with! I recently found it on dvd pre owned in a gamestop for three quid and had to get it, Watched it with some friends and quoted the hell out of it. 

Summing up

Great little film to watch with friends for the absolute laugh, more so for the pure eighties cheese and nothing else. "Oh Melvin, you're beautiful!!!"