Hailing from the ultra-low-budget Troma studio—the identical outfit that gave “Superman” director James Gunn his begin—the 2025 replace of the schlocky splatterfest “The Poisonous Avenger” leans into its corny 1980 roots, this time with star wattage the unique might have solely dreamed about. Peter Dinklage headlines alongside Kevin Bacon, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, and Elijah Wooden, who seems like he’s cosplaying as Danny DeVito’s Penguin from “Batman Returns.”
The unique cult traditional adopted a down-on-his-luck nerd, humiliated by scantily clad girls and brutish jocks, who fell right into a vat of poisonous waste and emerged as a grotesque anti-hero out for revenge. This new model doesn’t reinvent the idea a lot as tweak it. Author-director Macon Blair provides a dose of humanity by giving the protagonist a extra heartfelt motivation: household.
Dinklage performs Winston, a weary janitor at a shady waste company which may as properly be run by Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons.” A widower elevating his teenage stepson Wade (Tremblay), Winston is informed he has 6–12 months to dwell. Determined to purchase an experimental remedy his insurance coverage received’t cowl, he makes an attempt a theft that goes horribly improper. The botched crime results in his transformation from common joe to bulletproof, sludge-dripping monster, armed with a magical mop that dispatches goons in gleefully bloody style.
As a campy horror-comedy, “The Poisonous Avenger” mines some amusement from Winston’s predicament, however the repetitive tone, flat humor, and Dinklage fairly actually phoning in his efficiency as soon as the monster double takes over, drag it down. Blair, to his credit score, doesn’t overlook Troma’s legacy, staging sensible results that burst and ooze with all of the gooey creativity followers anticipate. On that entrance, it’s proudly unfiltered and uncut.
The place the film falters is in its try at coronary heart. Winston’s bond with Wade ought to be the emotional core, nevertheless it usually will get buried beneath an avalanche of carnage and groan-worthy one-liners. A second the place a personality praises Winston for elevating a baby who isn’t biologically his, and being prepared to die for him, hints at one thing deeper, nevertheless it’s fleeting. Wooden brings manic power as a ghoulish oddball, and Bacon chews the surroundings as a delightfully smarmy villain, however even they will’t elevate the scattershot script.
Finally, this “Poisonous Avenger” performs like an prolonged sizzle reel designed to showcase gallons of blood, guts, and goo. That’s enjoyable for some time, however with an ensemble this stacked, it’s disappointing the movie doesn’t aspire to extra. Had Blair leaned tougher into satirizing trendy superhero tropes, overstuffed blockbusters, sanitized violence, shallow sentimentality, this might have been a pointy, slimy antidote. As an alternative, it’s simply one other messy reboot, one which doesn’t fairly clear up.
THE TOXIC AVENGER is now taking part in in theaters.