Film Review: The Toxic Avenger

The Toxic Avenger
Director: Macon Blair
Legendary Pictures, Troma Entertainment
In Theaters: 08.29.2025

The definition of a good splatter film is hard to agree upon. Does it consist of copious amounts of violence and gore? Should it lean toward the more exploitation side of things and go full sleaze? Or is it the gutsy, do-it-yourself quality of the filmmaking? The 1984 cult classic, The Toxic Avenger, obviously does not set out to answer this question — nor does it have any interest in diving into any sort of pandering — and yet it has become one of the prime examples of a black-comedy splatter film. Keeping that in mind, how does the fifth and latest installment into the Toxic Avenger universe fare?

This reboot follows Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Wicked), a janitor who resides in St. Roma’s Village — a faded sign at the beginning of the film calls back to the 1984 film by reading as “Troma Ville” — with his stepson Wade (Jacob Tremblay, Doctor Sleep, Good Boys). After receiving a terminal brain cancer diagnosis, Winston attempts to beg the CEO of the company where he works, Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon, Friday the 13th, Beauty Shop), for help on his health insurance plan. After being denied, Winston attempts to steal money from the factory, which has been causing health issues with all the radioactive materials they have been using, and ends up getting mixed up with J.J. (Taylour Paige, Zola, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F) as she tries to find evidence of Garbinger’s dirty dealing. The scuffle ends with Winston getting shot and his body dumped into radioactive water, triggering his transformation into the Toxic Avenger. Armed with a radioactive mop, Winston makes it his mission to keep his stepson safe and expose Garbinger.

You can tell that the people who made this movie have a deep love and appreciation for the original film. With clever Easter eggs and callbacks throughout, Toxie superfans will have a hell of a time catching all the small little details. It also makes some welcome modernizations to the film. Notably, the film switches out the romantic subplot with the blind girl Sarah for a much more sincere father-son dynamic. With both Winston and Wade adjusting after a devastating loss, it’s easier to connect to and care about these characters. The performances are also great, led by Dinklage, who is able to full convey the emotions of the character — even after being caked in “toxic” makeup and prosthetics. Bacon also knows just the perfect way to tap into the cartoony villain archetype. The secondary antagonists, The Killer Nutz, are all also perfectly deranged and campy, albeit somewhat annoying, as they go around mowing people down.

Still, this film is far from perfect. While I praised the performances of some of the actors, others just fell flat. Elijah Wood plays Garbinger’s younger brother, and while his design is wacky, he isn’t given much to work with, which is a huge letdown, especially from an actor who has remade his career to being known as “a weird little guy.” David Yow, who plays a wise hobo named Guthrie Stockins, also doesn’t add much to the film — half the time he was on-screen, I felt like he was wasting my time. His jokes didn’t land, and if his part had been cut nothing would be missed, along with the entire plotline of Garbinger being mixed in with the mob. It was simply padding on top of padding — which, make no mistake, the original movie had plenty of — but it was still only an 80-minute feature as opposed to a 103-minute film.

Seeing CGI gore was also a disappointment. It looked fine in dark scenes, but that was probably because I couldn’t see anything. It was also so distracting considering that the original is known for its practical effects. That gore felt visceral and textured, whereas here it was just hollow. This leads to my biggest critique, which is that this film just feels too polished. There is no sense of grit or tangible filth present at all, and having such big-name actors makes that all the more apparent.

Despite my complaints, the film is still a decent watch. If you are a fan of the original cult film, you’ll have fun seeing all the fun references, and newcomers will appreciate Dinklage’s performance and the zany kills. Stay Toxie! —Angela Garcia

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