A Simplistic Review I The Toxic Avenger (2025)

NOSTALGIA is a hell of a thing.

Truly, I enjoyed the long-delayed ‘remake’ of ‘The Toxic Avenger.’ It gets a lot right. Macon Blair is obviously a fan of Troma and the series. There are Easter eggs galore from the use of ‘bozo’ to BTH (if you know you know) and it even includes actors from the 1984 original.

Changing up the origin story of Toxie freshens up the lore and just doesn’t retread what Lloyd Kaufman did 40 years ago. Blair is making a new story for a new generation, but while fans of the old film, and the cartoon ‘The Toxic Crusaders’ will eat up all the NOSTALGIA and have a hoot, I’m not sure where the series goes from here, sadly, if anywhere. It’s a mixed bag.

Would I like the new Toxie if I never saw the old Toxie? This film was one of my most anticipated films upon the new it was finally got to be released which brings me to….

…my other gripe.

This supposed ‘unreleasable’ moniker the film got slapped with upon completion. Perhaps a marketing gimmick, I’ll use a quite recent example of the ‘Terrifier’ series.

While I enjoy that series it’s simply gore porn that goes over the top most of it’s runtime and had no issues making a ton of money at the box office at thousands of screens. I’m not sure what happened where it took nearly two years to have ‘Toxic’ get on the big screen. But alas, it’s here and should be seen because it is a lot of fun and has just enough Troma throwbacks while still being accessible for a new generation to enjoy.

We need more companies Cineverse to be the anti-Blumhouse. Championing fringe cinema and releasing it to the masses instead of clogging up screens with tripe like ‘Megan 2.0’ and ‘Night Swim’ (forever to be one of the worse movies of the 2020s)