[Editor’s note: Hey there, CS readers. Got a Halloween treat for you this week and it doesn’t require putting on a costume or coming to our front door. It’s an extra Pick of the Week!]
I’m honestly not sure if I’ve seen the original Toxic Avenger movie. It was one of those films that used to run regularly on the old USA Up All Night program (where they showed lots of B-movies, exploitation flicks, low-budget horror, and dumb sex comedies on Friday and Saturday nights – more than anywhere else, that’s where I got my cinematic sensibilities from as a teen). I’m sure I’ve watched numerous scenes from the film. At a guess, I’d say I probably watched the entire movie in patches, but I don’t recall ever sitting down with it from beginning to end. If I did, it was an edited-for-cable version and thus not truly the entire film.
Buy The Toxic Avenger (2025)I did love all of those old, terrible movies. I still have a fondness for low-budget horror. But in the more than two decades since Up All Night originally aired (and I’m happy to say the original host of Up All Night, Rhonda Shear is back with a reboot of the series streaming on the Kings of Horror YouTube channel), I’ve gone cold on Troma’s brand of movies. The thing I love about low-budget horror is that the filmmakers generally did try to make something interesting. Even the films that fall under the “so bad it’s good” category were made by people who were aiming for something genuinely good. There is an earnestness in those films that makes them endearing (or hilarious). But Troma seems to intentionally make bad films in a winking style. The fact that they are aware of how awful their films are turns me off.
Of course. I say that as someone who hasn’t watched a Troma film in a very long time. I might just be talking out of my arse. But that’s the general sense I’ve gotten from them, even when I was actually watching their films.
I wouldn’t actually be interested in this new remake of The Toxic Avenger except for one name: Macon Blair. He’s probably best known as an actor in several of Jeremy Saulnier’s films. He was the star of Saulnier’s breakout film Blue Ruin, and has had smaller roles in several others. But he also co-wrote Saulnier’s 2018 film Hold the Dark and wrote and directed the underrated I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, and he’s currently acting in (and directed a couple of episodes of) the excellent FX series The Lowdown. What I’m saying is I think the dude is super talented, and I consider myself very much a fan. With his name attached to The Toxic Avenger, I’m all aboard.
Due to its violent content, the film had trouble getting released. It premiered at Fantastic Fest in September of 2023, but no studio would agree to release it. Finally, in January of this year, Cineverse bought distribution rights, and it received a limited release a few months later. And now, more than two years after it was finished, we regular people can finally watch it. I can’t wait.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
Shin Godzilla: Limited Edition 4K UHD Steelbook: The first Japanese Godzilla movie in more than a decade (the American movies don’t count) more than lived up to the wait. It is both an excellent kaiju flick and a political satire, demonstrating how utterly helpless our political systems would be against such an awesome foe. It has been released before in UHD, but this is a cool-looking steelbook and worth a mention.
In the Mouth of Madness 4K UHD: John Carpenter’s last truly good film is getting an upgrade from Arrow Video and is loaded with extras. Sam Neill stars as an insurance investigator sent to a small town to locate a missing horror novelist. What he finds may make him insane.
Ms .45 4K UHD: Abel Ferrara’s exploitation flick about a mute seamstress who takes to the streets for revenge after being raped twice is a lot smarter and more interesting than that synopsis implies. Arrow Video has the release. [Readers in the know will remember this was Davy’s Pick of the Week. – ed.]
Trick ‘r Treat 4K UHD Steelbook: Though I watch a lot of horror films, I’ve never managed to see this one. It is an anthology film featuring four intersecting stories in which a pumpkin-masked monster kills anyone who dares break the “rules” of Halloween. Arrow Video has the release
Nightmare Alley 4K UHD: The Criterion Collection presents Guillermo del Toro’s remake of a film noir classic about a mysterious carnival worker willing to do what it takes to climb up the social ladder.
A Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy: These three classic Hong Kong action/comedy films are getting the Shout Factory treatment.
The Cat and the Canary 4K UHD: This silent film is one of the earliest and best examples of the Old Dark House genre. Laura La Plante stars as a woman who has inherited a fortune, but must be proven sane before she gets any of the money. Naturally, her family does everything they can to drive her mad. Read my review.
A New Leaf 4K UHD: Elaine May’s romantic comedy stars Walter Matthau as a rich bachelor who runs out of funds and plots to marry and then kill a rich woman (played by May.) It is wonderfully funny, and sweet, and now Cinematographe is releasing it in UHD.
‘Gator Bait Collection: I remember staring at these hicksploitation VHS covers when I was a pubescent teen. They featured scantily dressed, cleavage-revealing women, and I could only fantasize about what those ladies got up to in the actual films. I was too young then to be able to rent them, and when I got old enough, I forgot all about them, but now…well. now they are being collected on Blu-ray by Terror Vision, and I just might have to splurge.
