Tag Archives: Schlock

EIFF 2025 – The Toxic Avenger

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More from this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival:

EIFF 2025 – The Toxic Avenger,
Directed by Macon Blair
Staring Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Luisa Guerrero, David Yow, Annette Badland Elijah Wood, Julia Davis

We live in an age of constant reboots – or “it’s not a reboot, it’s a re-imagining!” – but I must admit I was very surprised when I first heard that a new version of 1980s schlock classic The Toxic Avenger was in the works. Like many of you reading this, I suspect, I grew up raiding the video rental store at the weekend (ah, the pre-internet, pre-streaming days!), and my chums and I delighted in the “so bad it’s good style of film”. Indeed something I still delight in (see my recent review of the Japanese flick Hot Spring Shark Attack here!).

So I have history with Troma’s oeuvre, and Lloyd Kaufman is up there for me as an even schlockier (in the good way!) Roger Corman. But much as I loved Toxie, I was still surprised – this didn’t strike me as the usual IP to plunder for a reboot. And then I heard it was starring Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood among others, and I found myself intrigued. I strongly suspected those actors too had fond memories of watching the originals on VHS back in the day, and so when the film cropped up in the final Midnight Madness screening of this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, well of course I was going.

In the broadest strokes, this pretty much follows the simple formula from the 1980s: mild-mannered, put-upon everyman, now a janitor, Winston Gooze (Dinklage, using his hangdog expression perfectly here) has been dealt a series of bows, one after the other. He lies in St Romaville (the letters on the sign are faded so mostly the “T” and “ROMA” are visible, Geddit?), a rough, urban wasteland, run-down, polluted (by the very company he works for), run by corrupt politicians and gangsters in cahoots. He lost his wife,partner a year before, is now stepfather to a young boy with mental health difficulties, who doesn’t connect with him, despite him trying his best to look after him, then he discovers he has an inoperable brain condition, with only months to live.

But hey, fear not, there is a new experimental medicine! And his polluting company’s health insurance will totally cover it, right? Right?? Ah, no. An almost comical-tragical attempt to beg for help from the CEO (Kevin Bacon, clearly having fun here as a thoroughly despicable and preening villain) sees yet more rejection and disappointment, forcing him into a desperate attempt to break into his own workplace to steal money from the vault for his treatment.

Which of course goes wrong – he intersects with Taylor Paige’s environmentalist, J.J., who has been working with a crusading journalist to expose all the pollution and illnesses caused by the company, while Bob Harbinger (Bacon) has his minions, a metal group of psychopathic killers, commanded by his brother Fritz, a superbly creepy Elijah Wood chasing her. When their paths cross, she gets away, he is shot in the head and dumped into a tank of Toxic waste and… Well, I think most of you know what happens next!

Since most folks who are going to be interested in this new version are more than likely existing fans of the earlier films, comics and other media, I’m not going to rehash the plot here, you pretty much know what it is going to be: dunked in chemicals, mutations, new powers, coming to terms with it, using those powers to defend the town (with Luisa Guerrero donning the suit, having worked closely with Dinklage to match his mannerisms through the latex). The important question is, with modern resources and better budget than dear old Troma could ever have managed, does this still feel like a Toxie flick?

Well, of course it is a bit different, but overall this plays a lot of the familiar beats you both expect and want. Gags, puerile sexual references, ridiculously OTT splatter-gore (arms will be ripped off, heads removed by the glowing, Toxic mop, acidic pee will be deployed, toilet bowls are weapons!). It’s Grand Guignol, it’s messy, but it is also delightfully, knowingly silly, and all that violence and gore is so cartoonish that it is funny rather than horrifying. Kaufman himself makes a cameo, and according to a recent interview is delighted with the result.

The Toxic Avenger goes on general release at the end of August, and it is the sort of film best seen with a group of friends. Grab some drinks, some popcorn and sit in a group and laugh and cheer, and just enjoy some OTT fun (with an environmental message!).

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Reviews: Hot Spring Shark Attack

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Hot Spring Shark Attack,
Directed by Morihito Inoue,
Starring Takuya Fujimura, Masaki Naito, Mio Takaki, Koichi Makigami, Shôichirô Akaboshi, Daniel Aguilar, Yuu Nakanishi

The attractive coastal town of Atsumi is famous for its Onsen – natural hot springs with traditional Japanese guest houses. A perfect place to get away from all the stresses and strains of modern life and simply relax. Well, usually, at least, but not so much here since, as the more eagle eyed of you will have likely discerned from the title alone, this hot spring resort has a nasty problem with vicious sharks.

Okay, before we go any further, let’s be upfront here – I think most movie fans can pretty much guess what they are getting simply from that title and premise alone. This is insanely silly – ridiculous, even – nonsense, pure schlock, drawing on influences from Jaws to the Sharknado films and its spin-offs, even the Japanese tradition of Kaiju flicks too. And it doesn’t try to pretend to be anything but that – in fact Hot Spring Shark Attack pretty much revels in how damned silly it all is, it glories in the terrible special effects. It knows what it is, and it is happy to be that silly but, if taken the right way, incredibly fun watch.

We have a major (Takuya Fujimura), determined to expand the tourism to his small town, and who initially denies any problems (reminiscent of another mayor in a rather more well-known shark film), a lacklustre local police for lead by a chief more interested in finding a new hobby for his impending retirement, some marine biologists, and an increasing number of people mysteriously disappearing from the hot springs, which coincides with mutilated bodies washing up on the beach. It isn’t long before they connect these two and realise that, somehow, guests in the hot springs are being attacked and dragged off by something into the sea.

This involves some wonderfully bonkers justifications, such as a biologist explaining because sharks have cartilage instead of bone, they can squeeze down to go through pipes to the springs (yes, really!), including images of pipes trembling as they squeeze through them. Soon even those crazy explanations are dropped as the sharks start to be able to seemingly go anywhere, with pools opening up in roads, even in playgrounds, where our critters gleefully emerge to chomp someone before vanishing. This even leads to animated sections are various strategies are devised to deal with the growing threat (think the sort of animation Wes Anderson might put into the likes of The Life Aquatic, but much, much cheaper).

How an audience will react to this depends very much on the views. Those of us who actually take a delight in watching schlock, who know that there are Good Movies, there are Bad Movies, but there are also Good Bad Movies – think of those 80s cult flicks like Hell Comes to Frogtown or The Toxic Avenger (now being remade!). Pure schlock, yes, but this film, like those ones, knows what it is and plays with it, and the audience also knows and its partly why we’re there for it. It’s delightfully bonkers, nonsensical, crazy stuff, and yet it’s just so much damned fun! A good, daft, fun flick to watch on a Saturday night with some friends and drinks.

Hot Spring Shark Attack is getting a limited cinema release in the US, and is available on streaming platforms

This review was originally penned for Live For Films