Halloween 2020: October 2nd

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

I think every cult movie nerd goes through a Troma stage. Considering how many devotees the infamous New Jersey studio still has, I guess some never grow out of it. When you're an edgy teenager just beginning to explore the trash movie underworld, Troma seems exciting. Their films are cheap, gross, gory, weird, self-aware in their dumbness, and offensive-for-offensiveness'-sake. As I’ve gotten older, this particular blend doesn’t appeal to me the way it used to. The kind of attitude that sets out to piss everyone off, and wants you to know how crazy it is, can be exhausting to grown-up eyes. Still, I do have a certain nostalgia for Troma Entertainment's distinctive output, as it takes me back to those early days of discovery. I've reviewed a couple of Troma pictures over the years but have somehow never covered their trademark release, 1984's "The Toxic Avenger." Time to change that.

Melvin Ferd is the much humiliated, incredibly nerdy mop boy at the only gym in Tromaville, New Jersey. A group of psychotic bullies torment Melvin every day. An especially elaborate prank ends with him in a tutu, diving out a window and into a barrel of radioactive waste. This transforms Melvin into a hideously deformed but super-strong monster, innately driven to viciously exterminate the evil that plagues the crime-infested town. The newly transformed boy, still wielding his mop, soon becomes beloved by the community. The utterly corrupt government of Tromaville, however, seeks to destroy the Toxic Avenger. 

"The Toxic Avenger" started out as Troma's late entry into the eighties horror movement, after years of specializing in sex comedies. The finished product represents a far stranger blending of genres. The horror is apparent in graphic scenes of unhinged goons blowing away seeing-eye dogs, running over a paper boy's head, or Toxie stalking a chick through the gym's basement. (The scene that most feels like a slasher film.) Yet the Toxic Avenger is also a low-budget attempt at superhero action. Seen in a surprisingly elaborate car chase sequence or the numerous fight scenes between the Avenger and various goons. Above all else, an atmosphere of absurd, crude comedy rules. Such as in amusing scenes where Toxie and his blind girlfriend move into a dump or the hero attempts to disguise himself. Or tasteless gags about the disabled, Nazis, transgender people, gay men, Mexicans, or the obese. All these competing moods intersect and influence one another. In one moment, Toxie can be fighting bad guys using goofy slapstick and in the next, he graphically crushes their head. This anything-goes tonal blend is, at the best times, energizing and is, at its worst, obnoxious.

Obviously, the world of Tromaville is one of extremes. The bullies aren't just jerks but psychopaths that viciously beat old ladies, run over little kid's heads, and then masturbate to photos of the crime scenes. They have cartoonish names like Bozo and Slug, the actors discarding all actorly tact with their grotesque performances. When Melvin is seen on fire, people are inspired to laugh, not help him. Tromaville is such a horrible place that trucks hauling uncovered barrels of toxic waste and driven by coke heads are common sights. That every cop or elected officials is dealing drugs or exploiting children. This presents a certain degree of social commentary, mocking the real life social structures that allow such crimes to happen. Too often, the world of Tromaville - where everyone is awful and to the maximum degree - comes off as pointlessly nihilistic. "The Toxic Avenger" just barely avoids this fate because of the love the community has for Toxie, which includes defending him at the end, and the crude but kind-of-sweet romance between Melvin and Sarah.

"Crude," of course, is the other word that most accurately describes the cinema of Troma. Despite their extremity, few of "The Toxic Avenger's" special effects are convincing. Spaghetti is spread on a playing-dead dog, animal guts are yanked out of shirts, and fake blood spews everywhere. Toxie is played by a bodybuilder in some lumpy make-up. His rich chocolate voice was dubbed in by someone else and no attempt was made to match the lip movements. In fact, Kaufman usually just plays grumbling, distorted monster noises when Toxie is on-screen. The film construction is equally unrefined. One scene will abruptly cut to the next, even in the unrated edition. The sound is often drowned out by the music, which is largely composed of cheesy pop songs or blaring classical music. All the acting can most charitably be described as "theatrical." The plot is thin and loose. The crassness of... everything is entirely the point. The charms of the do-it-yourself ethos and the exploitation movie fondness for flesh and blood do have their limits. 

For about an hour of its 81 minute runtime, "The Toxic Avenger" is still an amusingly campy experience. The lack of budget is both a feature and a bug for Troma. A certain punk rock energy does propel things along. Kaufman and his team had funny ideas but are frequently held back by their desire to be shocking. None of its flaws would stop "The Toxic Avenger" from becoming a cult favorite. Troma knew how to thrill the 14 year old boys - and 14 year old boys-at-heart - who frequently rented this VHS tape back in the day. Lloyd Kaufman's tireless desire to exploit his I.P. has led to three sequels, a Saturday morning cartoon and accompanying toy line, a novel, a stage musical, and a perpetually forthcoming big budget Hollywood remake. Troma's mini-empire of exploitation trash may not be what it once was and "The Toxic Avenger" is only a fraction as fun today but it still intermittently amuses. [7/10]

The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)

It must have been apparent, quickly after the character debuted, that Coffin Joe would make a fine horror host. He was, after all, introduced speaking directly to the camera. His theatrical appearance and propensity for long monologues made him ideal for the role. Three or four times throughout his career, Jose Mojica Marins – both in and out of character as Zé do Caixão – would host horror shows and films on Brazilian television. The character would also appear in comics in the same role, as a presenter of macabre tales. All of this began merely four years after “At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul” came out. The same year Marins started hosting a TV series entitled “The Strange World of Coffin Joe,” an omnibus feature with the same name played in theaters. (Considering this was the same year “Trilogy of Terror” was released, I guess horror anthologies were popular in Brazil at the time.)

After a brief introduction from Coffin Joe – a rambling monologue about fear, death, and rationality – and a weirdly religious-sounding hymn about the character, we are presented with three grisly stories. “The Dollmaker” follows an artisan noted for his realistic hand-made dolls, who is assisted by his four daughters. A group of thugs attempt to rob his shop. They get more than they bargained for. In “Tara,” a mute balloon salesman fixates on a woman living on his street. Even after she is murdered on her wedding day, and her body entombed, his obsession continues. In “Ideology,” the famous professor Oãxiac Odéz goes on television to present his theory that love doesn't exist, that man is only driven by instinct. A reporter and his wife, intrigued by his ideas, are invited to Odéz' home. They soon discover Odéz is a sadistic lunatic and become the latest subjects of his sick experiments. 

“The Strange World of Coffin Joe's” first story is probably its most conventional. The minute it's noted that the man's dolls have strangely realistic eyes, you can figure out where the story is headed. However, Marins can still be commended for the ferocity with which he attacks this standard, EC Comics-style story. As soon as the thugs spot the dollmaker's beautiful daughters, the segment gets rather sleazy. There's a real air of danger about this one, as you wonder how far this home invasion story will go. When the twist comes, and evil is delivered unto evil, the film goes in a surprisingly grisly direction. Marins was clearly not backing off from the intense violence and greasy sexuality that defined his first two “Coffin Joe” films. 

“Tara” is probably the most striking segment, from an artistic perspective. To match the mute world of its silent protagonist, the story is presented entirely without dialogue. (With the soundtrack mostly being devoted to bellowing storm sound effects.) This encases the viewer entirely within the balloon seller's depraved world. He spies on his object of obsession, with glaring voyeuristic eyes. Yes, the film takes us inside the tomb with him and gives us a peek at his necrophiliac activities. Presumably because that wasn't perverse enough for Marins, the balloon seller also has a foot fetish. Marins renders the man's paraphilias with the same level of love and care the character would, getting more explicit than you'd expect from 1968. This one is real sick and definitely produces the desired effect – uneasiness and revulsion – in the viewer. 

“Theory” is the longest segment in “The Strange World of Coffin Joe” and the one that feels most connected to Marins' previous films. That's probably because the man himself is on-screen, playing Professor Odéz. Though he ditches the top hat and cape for the gaudy get-up of a bouffant, earrings, and a pendent, Marins is still sporting Coffin Joe's trademark fingernails. Not to mention his tendency for melodramatic rhetoric. “Theory,” somehow, tops “Tara” as the sickest segment in this film. A chained woman is pawed at by lunatics, her face then splashed with acid. A bound man is broken on the wrack before madmen chew on his body. There's a real nihilism to the tortures Odéz makes the married couple endure, as the professor goes about cruelly proving his point. The utterly hopeless climax of the tale, and the fierceness with which Marins depicts it, leaves the audience truly disquieted. 

Marins caps the film off with a disgustingly graphic depiction of cannibalism... Plus a Bible quote and another reprise of the “Hallelujah Chorus!” The filmmaker cloaking his sadistic horror in religious morality could not be more sarcastic. “The Strange World of Coffin Joe” is a strong collection of nasty horror, showing the director's continued interest in pushing pass boundaries. The film-making remains as crude as ever, with a few static shots and rough edits. (Further exacerbated by the rough sound and picture quality of my VHS copy.) Yet the anthology is, in some ways, more self-assured than the first two Coffin Joe movies. The result is a burst of fantastically repulsive, trash-horror that still shocks fifty years later. [7/10]

Beasts: During Barty's Party

America isn't the only country to produce horror anthology shows. The British have a long running tradition with the format as well. Throughout the sixties and early seventies, series with names like “Mystery and Imagination,” “Late Night Horror,” “Dead of Night,” “Shadows of Fear,” “The Frighteners,” and a non-Boris Karloff “Thriller” would bring spooky chills of the non-serial variety to the British Isles. An especially notable anthology series is “Beasts,” which ran on ITV for one six-episode season in 1976.  The series was created by Nigel Kneale, the popular and influential writer behind “The Stone Tapes” and the “Quatermass” series, and connected by the theme of bestial horror. “During Barty's Party” was recommended to me earlier in the year and it sounded so much like my kind of thing that I immediately added it to the Halloween watchlist. 

Long-time married couple Roger and Angie live a seemingly peaceful existence in the British suburbs. While he is at work, she is distressed by the chewing sounds of a rat living inside the walls. Not even loud music or the couple's pet dog seems to drive the animal away. After Roger returns home, the noise only seems to grow louder, suggesting more than one rat has taken up residence under the floorboards. While listening to a radio show, hosted by deejay Barty Mills, the two hear reports that a large rat migration is happening in the countryside. Angie and Roger only grow more fearful as the unseen hordes of rats seem to outsmart them at every turn. 

The most extraordinary thing about “During Barty's Party” is its sound design. We never actually see any rats during this hour. However, we do hear them frequently. By the halfway point, that gnawing, scurrying noise under the floorboards and behind the walls is almost constant. This mixes with the sounds of the couple's on-going bickering and the chatter from the radio. The description of a tidal wave of rats, when combined with those unnerving sounds, proves more disquieting than any visual ever could. Watching the couple's resilience slowly corrode, most obvious in how Roger's macho bluster gives way to weepy defeat, makes “During Barty's Party” feel increasingly bleak. Angie's tearful monologue, about how the time has come for rats to take revenge on humans, or her freak-out when discovering the phone line has been chewed through, make the situation feel more and more desperate. It all leads up to an utterly chilling climax, where the power of suggestion is utilized fantastically again, before a brilliant cut-to-black smacks us in the face. In other words, “During Barty's Party” is a concentrated blast of subtle horror that is sure to unnerve you. [8/10]

Forever Knight: Fever

The “Forever Knight” writers decided for some reason, in 1996, to try their hand at tackling the AIDS/HIV epidemic. At a research center working on a cure for HIV, a frustrated patient attacks and accidentally kills the doctor. In the scuffle, a lab rat escapes. Screed, Vachon's vampire friend who only feeds on rats, grabs the animal and drains it. Designed to cure HIV in humans, it causes a feverish sickness in vampires. The condition spreads easily too, as Nick is soon infected as well. The incident reminds him of his experience with the Black Plague centuries before.

I'll give “Forever Knight” this much: Its handling of HIV is more sensitive than I expected. Yeah, the infected man is still a killer but entirely accidentally. He's also treated very sympathetically. (Though perhaps a bit condescendingly.) The episode still features a bizarre sequence of someone being frozen to death with liquid nitrogen. I really don't know what was up with that. The virus storyline is not as effective as it could've been, if only because 2020 has added extra scrutiny to any depiction of a contagious disease. Nick gets sick but never seems to be in danger. The flashbacks, which also involve Nick bringing someone across and immediately regretting it, is mildly interesting. The episode does emphasize Tracy and Vachon's relationship, cause I guess this show needed two will-they/won't-they? relationships with a human woman and a male vampire. But I guess I am growing somewhat fond of those two, as that scene is among the episode's better. [6/10]