by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 10, The Film: 3.5/5, The Extras: 4.5/5, Overall: 8/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Mark Torgl, Mitch Cohen, John Altamura, David Mattey, Peter Dinklage, Luisa Guerreiro, Andree Maranda, Phoebe Legere, Trent Haaga, Elijah Wood, Lloyd Kaufman, Kevin Bacon
Intro:
… unlikely to win a new legion of fans to the Tromatic cause, but for existing mutants who still have affection for these nasty, trashy, noisy, dirty films, this green-hued collection contains a multitude of treasures.
The Film:
Troma Entertainment – the messy malformed brainchild of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz birthed in 1974 – means many different things to many different people. For teenage boys in the 1980s and ‘90s, they were a reliable source of boobs, gore and off colour humour. For emerging filmmakers, they were a cheap, sometimes nasty, way of getting into the biz – see James Gunn, Trey Parker & Matt Stone, Eli Roth. For normies, they are a source of consistent disgust, hand-wringing and pearl-clutching, inspiring the same revulsion as a fat rat feasting on a used condom.
Whatever you think of Troma, they are undeniably the longest-running independent film studio in the world. Their output has featured classics like Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986), Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1990), Tromeo and Juliet (1996), Terror Firmer (1999), Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) and, of course, The Toxic Avenger series.
The Tox Box, the latest 4K bumper release from the good mutants at Umbrella, bundles together The Toxic Avenger (1984), The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989), The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (1989), Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000) and the recent remake of the first film, imaginatively titled The Toxic Avenger (2025). As you might expect from Troma, the collection is the very definition of a mixed bag, although there’s plenty to enjoy for the previously Tromatised.
The Toxic Avenger (1984) remains the best of the bunch. Elegantly simple (certainly compared to the rest of the series) it tells the tale of awkward nerd Melvin Ferd (Mark Torgl), who after a cruel prank by some murderous jocks, does a header into a vat of toxic waste and transforms into the hideous creature of superhuman size and strength, The Toxic Avenger (Mitch Cohen). Toxie uses his newfound powers to maim, mutilate and grotesquely murder all those who did him wrong and everyone committing evil deeds in general.
The film plays out like a noisy, crude and at times shockingly mean-spirited superhero flick, with the usual gurning, over-the-top performances, graphic violence and gratuitous nudity that would become Troma’s stock-in-trade.
The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (1989) followed and should be discussed together because they were filmed at the same time as a single movie. Due to the shambolic, chaotic Troma shooting schedule, director Lloyd Kaufman realised that he’d shot too much material for one film and instead cobbled together two flicks released in the same year. The result… isn’t very good. Less mean-spirited than the first film, these entries are also significantly less funny. Part II is particularly dire, taking place in Japan and making a lot of the kind of racial jokes that your drunk uncle would find hilarious. Part III at least has a crack at saying something about selling out and going corpo, but it’s all a bit cack-handed and seems to forget what people actually liked about the first film: grotesque violence, subversion of superhero tropes and tits! Stoners and teenage boys will probably enjoy these two entries, but for everyone else, they’re a bit of a whiff.
Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000) was Troma doing the reboot/sequel thing before it was cool, where they release a film that ignores the previous sequels and pitches itself as a direct continuation of the 1984 original. Great theory. The film itself, however, is pure, jaw-dropping insanity. Did you feel parts II and III lacked the edgy humour of the original? Well, sit down, kid, because this one will edge you into oblivion (there has to be a better way to phrase that). Jokes about the physically and mentally handicapped, gags about school shooters, graphic sequences of elderly people being murdered and then prolifically shitting themselves, James Gunn playing an offbrand Stephen Hawking (doing the voice and everything) and a convoluted plot involving alternate realities, diaper-clad assassins and a character named (we shit you not) “Tito, the Retarded Rebel” – this film feels like Troma did a fat line of the devil’s dandruff in the disabled toilet and will … Not. Shut. Up. Citizen Toxie is every nihilistic, adolescent urge to shock and offend and, to be fair, it does so quite well. It’s also 109 minutes long and by the end you just feel like you’ve been pummelled to death by a teenager who thinks that Nazi and AIDS jokes are hilarious.
The Toxic Avenger (2023) is a somewhat controversial addition to this boxset because many Troma purists (yes, those people do exist) decry the film due to its softer, more crowd-friendly approach to the material. Honestly though, ignoring that, it’s a pretty decent flick. It never approaches the giggling, wild-eyed insanity of the best of the Troma originals, but it feels like an affectionate love letter to B-grade cinema, and Macon Blair (Blue Ruin, Green Room) directs the hell out of this thing. Imperfect and goofy, it nonetheless manages to entertain pretty consistently.
Watching Troma films feels weird in 2026, because there’s nothing quite like them. Which is both a good and bad thing. However, you can’t argue with what Troma has inspired, their zany comedy helped form South Park and Astron-6. It gave the world writer/directors like James Gunn and Trent Haaga. And hell, the films are fun, even if adult audiences may wince as much as they chuckle.
Offered here in gorgeous 4K, it’s the best that they’ve ever looked (which isn’t saying much) and certainly the best way for old school Troma fans to get a complete gander at the first superhero from New Jersey.
The Extras:
Quite the heaving pile of toxic extras here. Across ten discs, you have multiple director, cast and crew commentaries, numerous interviews with people across all levels of production, oodles of funny little featurettes (many of them featuring Lloyd Kaufman himself), plus heaps of trailers, TV spots and various bits and bobs. Superfans will be combing through this lot for days.
However, the cream of the crop is undoubtedly Apocalypse Soon: The Making of Citizen Toxie. This is an almost two-and-a-half (!) hour long documentary that showcases the most realistically tension-inducing portrayal of low budget filmmaking in recent memory. It’s like if the Safdie Brothers were doing behind-the-scenes gear! Unlike a lot of the other features, there’s nothing of hagiography here. This is a warts and all look at what it’s like to make movies on a shoestring, and quite bluntly shows Kaufman going off on his staff (all of whom he is paying poorly), fights between various departments, a stunt going wrong (that thankfully didn’t result in serious injury) and one jaw-dropping sequence where a script supervisor can’t understand the purpose of the pink pages. This latter sequence goes on for something like ten minutes and is Spinal Tap-esque in its inadvertent dry humour.
What’s great about this doc is the fact that Kaufman, despite coming off as an arsehole in much of it, has praised it for being so unflinching! Say what you will about the bloke, but his commitment to making people understand the realities of low budget filmmaking is impressive, even if you’re unlikely to ever want to work with him after watching this.
This fancy Collector’s Edition also comes with a 48-page booklet of behind-the-scenes material and essays from the likes of Jack Sargeant and David Michael Brown, a sturdy rigid case, art cards and a reversible poster.
The Verdict:
Although Troma still exists to this day, it’s definitely slowing down in its old age, perhaps questioning what it even means to be a renegade indie studio in 2026. It’s fascinating, then, to take a rollercoaster journey through its most iconic series, from its initial highs, to its awkward middle stages, to its off-the-rails denouement and recent remake. Not always an easy trip to go on, friends, but a compelling one, particularly for those who first stumbled across Troma quite by accident in that ancient temple to disposable entertainment, the video store.
The Tox Box is unlikely to win a new legion of fans to the Tromatic cause, but for existing mutants who still have affection for these nasty, trashy, noisy, dirty films, this green-hued collection contains a multitude of treasures. Just be warned, many of them are very sticky.
