Episode 799: The Toxic Avenger (2023)

The Projection Booth

Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Film Reviews, Film History

4.6 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2026

⏱️ 186 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2025, New Jersey's favorite hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength returned — twice. Writer/director Macon Blair's big-budget reimagining, The Toxic Avenger (2023), finally received a wide theatrical release in August 2025. Peter Dinklage voices Winston, a terminally ill janitor at a corrupt pharmaceutical company who falls into a vat of toxic chemicals and emerges as Toxie — a mop-wielding mutant vigilante. Kevin Bacon stars as the company's scheming CEO and Elijah Wood as his security-minded brother, in a film that wraps its splatter comedy around themes of healthcare, corporate greed, and unlikely heroism.

Also in 2025, Troma's own Andrew L. Miller and Adam Peltier reconstructed The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) and Part III (1989) into the single film they were always meant to be. Titled Mr. Melvin, the 127-minute cut restores the narrative logic Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz originally intended — following Toxie's post-heroic depression, a manipulated journey to Japan, and a Faustian deal with Apocalypse Inc. that turns him into a corporate sellout before the ultimate confrontation with the Devil himself.

Mike talks with Rob St. Mary about both films, and the episode includes interviews with Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman and Mr. Melvin co-producer and co-editor Andrew L. Miller.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is Aaron West. I am the author of the A-24 New Wave.
0:10.0	In this book, I look at A-24's output, and I make the argument that we are in a new wave movement right now.
0:16.0	A-24 plays a major role. This book has a supplemental podcast where each episode is a brief conversation
0:22.4	about an A24 related topic, whether an actor, director, or even a genre. As I continue research
0:29.9	for the book and conduct interviews, I expect to record podcast episodes with people involved
0:34.6	with the company. You can find the podcast at send the journeys.com or wherever
0:39.2	you find podcasts, and we are proud to be members of the someone's favorite productions podcast network.
0:48.2	Hello and welcome to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys. My name is Hunter. In this podcast, I'll be
0:53.5	joined by a different guest each week to discuss
0:55.5	a classic Western movie or TV show. I've been a fan of classic Westerns for as long as I can
0:59.9	remember, and in recent years, they've become very nostalgic for me. I love the aesthetic,
1:04.3	the tropes, and I love seeing different filmmakers' takes on them. At their best, they're
1:08.9	incredibly entertaining, rewatchable, and some of my all-time favorite movies are westerns. We'll mostly focus on Western movies made in Hollywood, but we'll also be covering spaghetti westerns, and one thing I'm very excited to get into are Western TV shows. I've got some amazing guests coming on the show, film professors, historians, and podcasters, and tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys is part of the
1:28.4	Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network, and many guests on the show will be from
1:32.8	other shows on the network. Thanks for listening. If you're looking for more horror outside of
1:38.0	the mainstream, look no further than Unsung Horrors, a podcast about underseen horror movies.
1:44.6	I'm Lance.
1:45.5	And I'm Erica.
1:46.7	Every other week, we'll cover a horror movie with fewer than 1,000 views on letterboxed.
1:51.6	We'll even give you double feature recommendations to pair with the movies we discuss.
1:55.8	From Gothic to shot on video, from slasher's to comedies, from Gialo to J-Horror.
2:01.5	We'll cover all the subgenres.
	...

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