A “big budget” Toxic Avenger movie is still modest by modern comparisons. It has big stars like Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon, but they still went to Bulgaria to take advantage of economical filming there. It is a polished movie but director Macon Blair also made it weird enough to be faithful to Troma.
Troma movies look good on 4K because they shot on film. The modern remake holds up with the recent superhero movies on 4K. The town of St. Roma (get it?) is bright and vivid, as are the flamboyant villains and Toxie’s gory dismemberments. And yet, the nights are crisp and well lit too.
Even the streets are sets they constructed, so every detail is crafted, not just pointing a camera at existing locations. The film finds deep shadows as Toxie emerges from his transformation, and enters the Miss Meat fast food restaurant from the darkness. The trippy transformation montage is a visual feast in 4K too.
Surround sound effects are surprisingly subtle for such a bombastic movie. The transformation montage takes advantage of a lot of random sounds in the speakers. Since Blair dubbed a lot of jokes into the background, most of them are still audible in front with only minor comments coming from behind. In the finale, you do hear Winston (Dinklage/Louisa Guerreiro) fight Bob (Bacon) while J.J. (Taylour Paige) fights Kissy (Julia Davis) in the foreground.
Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman is funny in the behind-the-scenes features and you get to hear Guerreiro’s real voice on set and in interviews. They do a fun summary of the entire franchise in 10 minutes with Tromette Tiffany Shepis. A 15 minute clip of the 40th anniversary retrospective with AC Christensen and guest puppets Barry Under Your Bed, Chad the Bird and Lucy Ba’al seems like a bit out of context but TikTokers can probably explain it to me.
Blair keeps his audio commentary moving and has a story about every moment in the film. He mentions some deleted scenes so it’s too bad they are not included. Maybe in the next special edition.