Two years have passed since filming wrapped on writer/director Macon Blair’s remake of the Troma cult classic The Toxic Avenger (watch it HERE). We still don’t know when the movie is going to receive a wide release, but it did just have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, which is running in Austin, Texas from September 21st through the 28th, last night… and the reactions that have come out of the Fantastic Fest screening are very positive! Posts on social media have described the movie as funny, gory, insane, and heartwarming – and you can read some of them in the embeds below:
Those posts make it sound like there must have been constant audible reactions going on in the screening room, but this one indicates that the film’s brand of humor didn’t go over well with everyone in attendance:
Blair’s version of The Toxic Avenger stars Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a stereotypical weakling who works as a janitor at Garb-X health club and is diagnosed with a terminal illness that can only be cured by an expensive treatment that his greedy, power hungry employer refuses to pay for. After deciding to take matters into his own hands and rob his company, Winston falls into a pit of toxic waste and is transformed into a deformed monster that sets out to do good and get back at all the people who have wronged him.
Dinklage is joined in the cast by Kevin Bacon as villainous corporate overlord Bob Garbinger; Elijah Wood as Bob’s brother Fritz Garbinger, who is described as “sort of Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Danny DeVito Penguin mixed together”; a group of lunatics / musicians called the Killer Nutz, who are “a rock and roll group where their presentation is theatrical evil, like KISS or Alice Cooper, but their moonlight gig is professional assassins”; Taylour Paige as investigative reporter / vigilante detective JJ Doherty; Jacob Tremblay as Winston’s stepson Wade; Jonny Coyne as a “shadowy criminal figure”; Sarah Niles as a “corrupt city official”; Julia Davis as an unspecified character; and Blair as a guy named Dennis.
The Toxic Avenger remake was filmed in Bulgaria. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz produced with Legendary Entertainment. The film has received an R rating for “strong violence and gore, language throughout, sexual references and brief graphic nudity“ – and the gore includes a moment that has been referred to as “the butt guts scene“.
Are you looking forward to The Toxic Avenger remake? What do you think of the first reactions? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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