31 Nights of Terror #4 - The Toxic Avenger (1984)

The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Director: Lloyd Kaufman
Starring: Mitchell Cohen, Andree Maranda
Format: DVD (Troma)

- Alright, so this is the Director's Cut DVD. Not sure what that means, other than there are a few "deleted scenes" in the special features.
- Special DVD intro by Lloyd Kaufman, Mr Troma himself. As he says, this movie is what "built the house of Troma".
- Disclosure: I'm not really a fan of Troma movies. I prefer my horror a little less, well, silly I guess. I enjoy Class of Nuke 'Em High and a couple of others, but most Troma flicks do nothing for me.
- More disclosure: I haven't seen any of the sequels, and it's been close to 25 years since I saw this one. I remember quite liking it back in the day and I think it was probably one of the first gorey movies I ever saw.
- Digging the totally gnarly 80s soundtrack.
- Toking sit ups. That seemed so badass when I was 13.
- Nothing says 80s (or 70s) like naked breasts with tanlines.
- The Toxie transformation effects are actually pretty decent for such a low budget.
- Bad, bad overdubbing when Toxie speaks. Was that in the original, or is it some Director's Cut meddling?
- I am not surprised to read on IMDB that actor Pat Ryan, who played Mayor Belgoody, died at the age of 44. Boy was he one obese dude.
- Hey look, a one-armed bandit!
- Nice head-crushing scene. I guess that was the one it mentions on the cover of the DVD?
- A lot of the humor is lame, but I love the montage where Toxie does good deeds, like opening a jar for an old lady.
- Gratuitous car chase/crash sequence for no reason.

Overall thoughts: After a rough couple of days at work, tonight I needed some good old fashioned escapism. To switch my brain off and watch something that didn't take any thinking. So what better than a Troma flick right? As I mentioned above, I haven't watched The Toxic Avenger since the late 80s. I liked it when I saw it way back then, but how did it hold up to the test of time? Well, it was okay. A lot of the humor fell flat, but overall it's got a certain low budget, underground charm to it. Definitely a movie that appealed more to 13-year-old me (lots of boobs, toilet humor and gore) than 36-year-old me, but I'm glad I revisited it.