The wait is over! The Toxic Avenger arrives in theaters today, and Troma fans can finally see writer-director Macon Blair’s fresh (but still gross, gory, and proudly unrated) take on the legendary cult franchise.
In a splattery movie with a lot going on—a sinister health-care megacorp that’s poisoning people and the environment; a hero with a terminal illness who transforms into a badass mutant; Elijah Wood as you’ve never seen him before; a nu-metal “monstercore” band that moonlights as assassins; another gang of assassins, this time with a preppy jock aesthetic; a kid who just really wants to dance; and more—The Toxic Avenger comes back to one important thing: the father-son relationship at its core.
io9 got a chance to talk to Blair and star Peter Dinklage earlier this summer, just ahead of The Toxic Avenger’s big Hall H moment at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.
“I didn’t want to literally step in the same footsteps as the original, where he was more of an adolescent character and he’s trying to get a girlfriend,” Blair said. “So I wanted to do something different. Also, I’m a dad and I think, not in a literal way, but I’m always trying to look for some kind of way to personalize the script that I’m working on. That seemed like the way into it for me, was to have the heart of it about basically a dad and a kid and them trying to figure their situation out.”
What’s more, “I think there’s a sweetness in the original movies too, and as much as we wanted to preserve the gore and the weird comedy and all that stuff, I wanted to try and preserve the sweetness too.”
Dinklage plays main character Winston Gooze as a human, but stunt performer Luisa Guerreiro takes over after Winston’s transformation into Toxie. Dinklage continues to do Winston’s voice, though, and the level of collaboration is impressive.
“We had the luxury of a week or so of rehearsals—not all films get that—but Luisa and Macon and I had that time together and Luisa, who is in the suit, is just so good at what she does,” Dinklage said. “She got all my mannerisms down, just sort of studied me like a hawk and that’s because of her homework, her due diligence, is why a lot of people think it’s me in the suit. And of course the voiceover added a different, strange element to it all—that it’s my voice. It just worked, in my opinion, seamlessly.”
In a key scene, our irradiated protagonist steals the spotlight with an unexpected karaoke moment. The song is “Overkill” by Motörhead, an obvious nod to the band’s late lead singer, Lemmy—a longtime Troma supporter who popped up in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, among other films from the studio. But it wasn’t Blair’s first choice, surprisingly.
“The honest story behind that is in the script I had written it to be a song by Danzig and then Danzig wanted editorial control over the scene,” he recalled. “So we were like, ‘Yeah, we can’t really do that,’ and the next choice was Motörhead. But I’m a big believer in, like, whatever it ends up being is what it was absolutely supposed to be and in hindsight I feel like a fucking fool for trying to make it Danzig in the first place. It should have been Motörhead from the beginning and I’m glad that’s how it ended up. In my mind I was like, Danzig’s from New Jersey so that sort of makes sense too, but Motörhead is a much better option.”
(The original song choice was Danzig’s “Mother,” by the way.)
As Winston goes on his blood-splattered path of revenge and redemption, his point of view shifts from “sometimes it’s better to do nothing” to “sometimes you gotta do something.” Blair thinks that makes him the perfect hero for our times.
“I like the idea that even if the thing that you’re doing is disorganized or you’re doing it in the incorrect way, just trying to do something is better than nothing at all,” Blair said. “The fear of getting it wrong, I think, sometimes can keep people from trying whatever the thing is, and I like the idea that in the movie Winston doesn’t really know what he’s doing; he doesn’t exactly have a plan, but he’s doing the best he can with what he has.”
The Toxic Avenger stars Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Taylour Paige, Jacob Tremblay, and David Yow; it’s written and directed by Macon Blair with original Toxic Avenger director and Troma boss Lloyd Kaufman among its producers. Catch it in theaters starting today, August 29.
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