Let me clear something up about this confusing title. There is noThe Toxic Avenger 5, and there is certainly noThe Toxic Avenger 5: The Toxic Twins. What there is, is a decade-plus of production that went into making a reboot of the 1984The Toxic Avenger, which premiered in 2023 and is titled,The Toxic Avenger. In that time of pre-production, which saw everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Guillermo Del Toro to Conrad Vernon attached at one point or another, producer Lloyd Kaufman made a joke movie trailer calledThe Toxic Avenger 5: The Toxic Twins(viaYouTube).
Are you still with me? So, after many years of production delays,The Toxic Avengerpremiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2023, for only a select group of viewers. All good, right? Nope.The Toxic Avenger’s release was delayed two yearsand now the film is set for wide release in August 2025. Apparently,no one wanted to distribute a movie that gorey and with nudity that graphic. As a fan ofThe Toxic Avengerfranchise, I can say that if you like horror, make sure you’re in a seat in August forThe Toxic Avenger.
The Toxic Avenger (2023) Is A Ridiculous And Gratifying Remake
The Fifth Movie In The Franchise Brings The B-Movie To The Modern Era
The Toxic Avenger(2023) is the fifth feature-length movie in the franchise, so it could be calledThe Toxic Avenger 5, but really, it’s justThe Toxic Avenger, and unlikeThe Toxic Avenger Part II(1989),The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie(1989), andCitizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV(2000),The Toxic Avengeris a reboot, not a next chapter. As such, it has the benefit of introducing viewers to one of thewildest modernized monster heroesyou can find on film. In any other movie, that dude would be the villain.
The Toxic Avenger Explained: A History Of Troma Movies
Troma Entertainment has long been known for their over-the-top violence, gore, and schlocky special effects, but what is the history of this studio?
The Toxic Avenger(2023) easily beats out the next three movies in the franchise, which, along with being b-movies, are barely watchable for stretches. There are plenty of absurdly funny and gross parts in each, but they don’t really come close to the original or the reboot. BetweenThe Toxic AvengerandThe Toxic Avenger(2023), it’s a bit more of a battle of which movie is better. Even in this head-to-head, in whichhorror originals nearly always beat remakes,The Toxic Avenger 5beatsThe Toxic Avenger.
One aspect of the originalThe Toxic Avengerwas that it was a satirization of the superhero movies and media popular at the time, such as the Christopher Reeve’sSupermanfilms,RoboCop, and Lou Ferrigno’sThe Incredible HulkTV show. There was certainly plenty of superhero material to mine for the 1989 movie, but it in no way compares to the amount of superhero movies we currently have. With the entire MCU and DCEU at its fingertips, the 2023The Toxic Avengermakes a meal of dismantling the classic superhero tropes.
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I’m still waiting for the real superhero parody movie or TV show to properly skewer the genre that has overstayed its welcome.The Boysdoes a pretty good job, but it’s a bit more about the machine that creates superhero media than it is about the movies themselves, and in later seasons, it threatens to be a superhero show altogether.The Toxic Avenger(2023) gets the closest to poking holes in the genre in the same way (though not nearly to the extent) asAustin Powersdid to theJames Bondfranchise.
Peter Dinklage Is The Best Toxie To Appear In The Toxic Avenger Franchise
Dinklage Is The Only Toxic Avenger To Portray And Voice The Character
A handful of actors have played Toxie over the years, Toxie being the name of the Toxic Avenger. Often, the mutant/monster/hero is played by multiple people with one actor providing the on-screen depiction and the other providing the voice. They all have their quirks and strengths, butPeter Dinklage is the best of any of them, not least because he provides his own performance under the makeup and does the voice work as well. It’s also important to note that he plays Winston Gooze too, who is Toxie before he’s mutated.
The human version of Toxie is named Melvin Junko in the original movies.
Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actorPeter Dinklage is an incredible performerand an inarguable boost to whatever film or TV show he appears in, and the same can be said forThe Toxic Avenger. Unlike the original film, the pre-transformation Toxie inThe Toxic Avenger(2023) has an honest-to-goodness emotional backstory, and Dinklage is just the guy who can make you feel bad for him, even while the rest of the film is going bonkers around him. His attempts to connect with his son after his wife passes are tragic and made moving by Dinklage’s performance.
Later, when he’s transformed into Toxie, his horrific appearance juxtaposed against Dinklage’s smooth, Shakespearean voice makes for an absurdly funny and thematically resonant juxtaposition.
Later, when he’s transformed into Toxie, his horrific appearance juxtaposed against Dinklage’s smooth, Shakespearean voice makes for an absurdly funny and thematically resonant juxtaposition. Winston is still there under the green slop that was once his skin, and while everyThe Toxic Avengeris primarily concerned with over-the-top kills, Dinklage makes you wonder what’s going on in Toxie’s head while he’s smashing faces and laying his signature mops across the bodies of the villains he dismembers.
What Director Macon Blair Has Said About The Toxic Avenger
This Is Blair’s Second Film After I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore
A producer and actor who has worked on several of Jeremy Sauliner’s movies, Macon Blair must have learned a thing or two about grotesque violence fromThe Green Roomdirector because hisThe Toxic Avengerhas it in spades. A fan of Troma movies, which producedThe Toxic Avengers, Blair said (viaEW),
“My group of friends were starting to make our own movies on VHS. Everything we did was a rip-off of Monty Python and early Troma movies.”
Blair said makingThe Toxic Avengerwas like,
“…getting back to those early days with my buddies, but getting to do it with f***ing Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon. Very surreal.”
The director also spoke about what drew him toThe Toxic Avengerfranchise specifically (viaCollider),
“When I was a young person I saw the movie at a very impressionable age and it got stuck in my head and kind of formed what I liked about movies in some ways… And then all of a sudden, Legendary was like, ‘We’ve got this IP, and it’s The Toxic Avenger,’ and I was like, ‘Well s**t!” If ever there was an already existing character or franchise, whatever you want to say, that demanded it be big and goopy and silly and sentimental and sweet and gross and all those things I was trying to do, it was this one.”
Blair nailed that tone, andThe Toxic Avengeris indeed a violent, wild mess, butit also has a heart which makes for a much more rewarding watch than if it were simply a gorefest. This is the second movie Blair’s directed, after the 2017 thrillerI Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymoreand hopefully, the studio won’t be taking too much out of the original cut for the wide release, because Blair deserves another win in his filmography.
The gore, exploitation, and humor makeThe Toxic Avenger(2023). Though it’s not titledThe Toxic Avenger 5, in order for it to feel at home in the franchise, those key themes and style choices have to remain. There are a lot of ways to get caught up inThe Toxic Avengerfranchise, but you’re best starting off with the 2023 reboot.
