Peter Dinklage stinks and he throws things in this gooey remake of a Troma cult classic. But does it have a hope of capturing what made the original so… uh, original? Or does it face a future on the rotten remake rubbish pile?
Move aside Melvin Ferd, Dinklage plays put-upon mop man Winston Gooze, who’s transformed into the titular hero (embodied by Luisa Guerreiro) after being dumped into a vat of toxic waste by a local radioactive ooze magnate.
Reborn as the Toxic Avenger, aka Toxie, Winston attempts to reconnect with his distant stepson Wade (Jacob Tremblay) in-between rounds of matching wits with villainous Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon) and his henchmen (including a Penguin-coded Elijah Wood, and Nighty Night’s Julia Davis).
Fears that this big budget remake would lose the crude spirit of the original Toxic Avenger are quickly mopped aside, with director Macon Blair proving a worthy heir to Troma’s own Stan Lee, Lloyd Kaufman. While it never not feels weird having Game of Thrones star Dinklage in a Troma movie, none of the original’s signature gore or filth have been lost in translation.
Between the high-profile cast and slick visuals, this feels like the Toxic Avenger movie that Kaufman could never afford to make. Occasionally that’s to its detriment (no amount of CGI gore can make up for even the cheapest exploding head effect), but the film does a good job of updating Toxie for a modern audience.
THE TOXIC AVENGER premiered at UK FrightFest on August 22nd, 2025.
Once Upon a Time In... Harleywood 