The Toxic Avenger Remake: Modernizing a Cult Classic

Macon Blair’s remake of the 1984 cult classic splatter film The Toxic Avenger brings the monstrous superhero Toxie into the modern age, but there are still plenty of echoes of the original movie. Starring Peter Dinklage, Taylour Paige, Jacob Tremblay, Kevin Bacon, and Elijah Wood, the outrageous and unrated black comedy trades some of the original’s sleaze and silliness for a more pointed, yet still relentlessly gruesome narrative.

The Toxic Avenger reportedly caused audience walkouts, as some have been unprepared for the various ways the movie earns its unrated designation. The movie is loaded with brutal and bloody violence, as Toxie dispenses his own personal brand of justice with his ever-burning mop and freakish strength.

The movie is set in a universe that is a twisted version of reality, although the modern remake leans a little closer to reality than the absurdist caricature of a city that acts as the 1984 original’s setting. Where the original was littered with textbook 1980s bigoted villains and gratuitous nudity, the remake scales back on the misogyny and degradation in favor of better gore and smarter humor.

The Toxic Avenger Remake Adapts The Narrative For Modern Day

The Toxic Avenger Exclusive Still Featured ScreenRant

Macon Blair took the framework laid out by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufamn, the original creators of Toxie, and truly made it his own. His modernization of the general concept is a big reason why the movie has been well-received by both critics and audiences, as it currently sits with matching 84% scores on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer and Popcornmeter.

First and foremost, Blair created a much firmer backstory for the movie’s villains than that of the murderous Bozo, Slug, and crime boss Mayor Belgoody from the 1984 original. While The Toxic Avenger doesn’t go overly deep, the plot moves in a much more coherent manner with Toxie battling against an evil pharmaceutical corporation and its various toadies as opposed to various disconnected gangsters.

If you rinse off the blood and guts, you can find some legitimate satire in the fabric of The Toxic Avenger. On the surface, The Toxic Avenger as a character heavily satirizes the superhero genre, trading in radioactive spider powers, teenage mutant ninja powers, and other chemically-induced transformations for a horrifying, oozing visage to go with super strength and acidic urine.

The Toxic Avenger (2025) – Key Review Scores
RT Tomatometer Score	RT Popcornmeter Score	IMDB Score	Letterboxd Score	Metacritic Metascore	Metacritic User Score
84%	84%	6.0/10	3.2/5	67/100	6.3/10

The modern remake heavily leans into criticism of the pharmaceutical industry, the criminality at the heart of the modern American healthcare system, and our dependence on (and ignorance about) products that are likely slowly damaging us with their ingredients. It gives the movie an undertone of genuine purpose, but let’s be clear, the gore and visual gags are still the bread and butter.

The Toxic Avenger Remake Fully Fleshes Out Toxie As A Character

Toxie looking suspiciously while sitting in a junkyard in Toxic Avenger 2025

Most importantly, the new version of The Toxic Avenger makes Toxie a much stronger character. While Melvin Ferd, the original character that transforms into Toxie, is a cult classic icon, there is not much to him; he’s a nerd that works as a janitor, tormented by people bigger, stronger, and far meaner than him.

There is nothing groundbreaking about the character of Winston Gooze, but he’s miles better than what we ever got out of Melvin Ferd. Winston is an underpaid janitor at an evil corporation, whose very life is a tragedy.

Winston lost the love of his life recently, is stuck with a stepson who he doesn’t really connect with, and is dying because of a brain tumor that he almost certainly got as a result of working at the aforementioned evil corporation. His desperate situation is what drives him to attempt to rob his employer, which ultimately leads to his transformation into Toxie.

Granted, having an ultra-talented Primetime Emmy winner playing a character certainly makes a difference in how well-established he is. Dinklage’s performance, combined with Luisa Guerreiro’s excellent work physically performing in the Toxie suit, creates a much more sympathetic and humanized character than the original movie’s mutated hero.

While the original Toxic Avenger was inexplicably drawn to evil people, and seemingly not in control of his actions when he attacks them, the modern version puts Toxie in control the entire time, making him seem much more like a hero as opposed to a monster who happens to be aimed in the right direction. Once again, Dinklage/Guerreiro’s combined performance does a lot of the heavy lifting here.

The modern remake also ditches the problematic romance that Toxie has with Sara, the blind restaurant patron that he saves in one of his first public appearances as the “monster hero” in the 1984 original. In the original movie, Sara becomes his girlfriend and they move into a home he fashions out of junk at a toxic waste dump, and there is even a silly and unnecessary sex scene.

Macon Blair’s remake ditches the character of Sara almost entirely (although there is a blind patron in the restaurant that Toxie saves), and swaps her out for Taylour Paige’s whistleblower J.J. Doherty. The two form a vengeful alliance bent on taking down Kevin Bacon’s corrupt CEO Bob Garbinger, which is far more entertaining than the first movie’s awkward romance.

All the various changes to Toxie’s character and the narrative make the movie much more appropriate and poignant for modern audiences. While Macon Blair’s The Toxic Avenger shows plenty of deference to the cult classic original, it makes smart updates that make the new version a marked improvement over the first appearance of Toxie.