Hooptober 12.0 – The Toxic Avenger (2023)

Being Film #30 for Hooptober 2025

Here’s the deal. I just realized I got all my requirements in for this year’s Hooptober by review #29. So rather than watch films I thought I needed, I picked two films I needed. As in, “my stress level is so high I just need some FUN” needed. And so I jumped in on something a lot of us who love this genre have been waiting literal years for: Macon Blair’s remake of the Troma classic The Toxic Avenger. Maybe it’s impossible for a film with such a history behind its troubled journey to the screen to live up to expectations, but you know what? I dug the hell out of it. Blair has written and directed not only a film that lives up to the original’s over-the-top squishy gooey effects and story, but it also pays beautiful homage in its style to the studio and its uniquely skewed perceptive.

THE QUICK SUMMARY: Winston Gooze is just trying to get by. A low-level janitor at seedy pharmaceutical company BTH, he’s mourning the death of his rocker girlfriend and trying to connect to his step-son Wade who has his own trauma and issues. But it gets worse: shady gangsters are trying to buy out the neighborhood and may even be in bed with Bob Garbinger, the CEO of BTH. Can any more shoes drop? What about an inoperable brain tumor? Sure! Turns out Winston’s Platinum insurance doesn’t cover the Gold tier, and a plea to Garbinger for assistance turns into a bullet to the face and a drop into some nasty toxic waste. You know what happens next…but did you know about the parkour? Or the Motörhead sequence? THE ACID PEE????

All eyes are rightfully on Peter Dinklage, who was an inspired choice for casting as Toxie, and he brings a hangdog charm to the lovable Winston, who rather than the original’s overt nerd is more of a sad sack trying to get by and do right by his step son. Dinklage makes sure you connect with Winston and are equally invested in his story before the more obvious moments after his transformation: probably my favorite moment in the movie involves his medical consultation with his doctor (hilariously played by Sunil Patel) which has an equally great callback at the film’s end.

So yeah, Dinklage is great, but the film doesn’t have to rest on his shoulders alone. Kevin Bacon continue to ooze his greasy charm in his later years as Bob Garbinger, a Bryan Johnson type who will stop at nothing to live forever as he drains the life out of the surrounding community of St. Roma’s Ville (get it?). Even better is the delightful performance of Elijah Wood, who looks like a hunchbacked Riff Raff from Rocky Horror Picture Show and despite being a bad has many of the same traits as poor Winston.

Best of all though is Blair. He demonstrated he had the goods with I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore (also starring Wood), but I think he takes things to another level here. His eye for not only the period, but the actual vibe and feel of those classic Troma films like Surf Nazis Must Die and Class of Nuke ‘Em High is completely on point, and his ability to shoe in so many jokes without turning this into a Naked Gun situation is commendable. Super fun and gory film that might not be straight horror, but when you have this many heads exploding it’s certainly horrific fun.