Look—I was starting to think this thing had quietly oozed back into the radioactive swamp it came from. Macon Blair's The Toxic Avenger reboot wrapped filming in 2021. That's three full years ago. That's pre-Barbenheimer. That's… ancient. But here we are, on the edge of the nuclear cliff, and it's finally happening.
Thanks to Cineverse acquiring distribution earlier this year, The Toxic Avenger will blast into U.S. theaters on August 29, 2025—and they've just dropped not one, but two gloriously unhinged posters to prove it. Green goo, grotesque makeup, and Peter Dinklage's haunted stare? Yeah, it's real. It's coming. And it's not rated.
The Toxic Renaissance (Yes, Really)
Let's get this out of the way: this isn't your dad's Troma flick… but it also kinda is. Writer-director Macon Blair (I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore) knows exactly what made the original 1984 Toxic Avenger tick: gore, satire, and that whiplash blend of lowbrow charm and midnight-movie anarchy.
And instead of sanding off the edges for a modern reboot, Blair went full sicko mode. Forget the MPAA's R rating (which they originally slapped on for “strong violence and gore, language throughout, sexual references and brief graphic nudity”)—this version's going unrated. That likely means everything the censors cut has slithered back in.
One of the new posters boldly flaunts that “UNRATED” stamp, daring you to look away. The other? It's a retro-sleaze collage of characters, with critical blurbs like “A bloody radioactive riot!” and “Totally bonkers in a great way.” They're not subtle. They're not trying to be.
From Janitor to Juggernaut: Who Is Toxie This Time?
At the heart of the story is Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage), a soft-spoken janitor at Garb-X Health Club. Diagnosed with a terminal illness and shafted by his greedy boss, Winston tries to rob the company… and winds up face-first in a pit of toxic sludge. What crawls out isn't Winston anymore—it's Toxie, a vengeance-fueled freak with a deformed face, a massive mop-club, and zero patience for corruption.
Dinklage voices the character, but the physical performance is by Luisa Guerreiro—an actor and movement artist who reportedly nailed the creature work under layers of prosthetics and radioactive goo. (Imagine Gollum, but with abs and a vendetta.)
The cast? Ridiculously stacked. You've got Kevin Bacon playing a mustache-twirling corporate villain named Bob Garbinger. Elijah Wood as Bob's brother Fritz—a mashup of Rocky Horror's Riff Raff and Danny DeVito's Penguin. Taylour Paige as vigilante reporter JJ Doherty. And Jacob Tremblay as Wade, Winston's stepson. There's also Julia Davis, Jonny Coyne, Sarah Niles, and even Blair himself showing up as “Dennis.”
The whole thing was shot in Bulgaria, which honestly just makes it feel more… off-kilter? Like, you know weird stuff went down on that set.
Why This Actually Might Work
Look, I get it. Troma reboots aren't exactly box office gold. But Blair isn't spoofing the original—he's honoring its grotesque DNA while giving it just enough polish to catch the eye of modern genre fans. And he's not chasing MCU money. He's making a radioactive fever dream with character actors, prosthetics, synth-soaked vengeance, and no leash.
The trailers (and now the posters) make it clear: The Toxic Avenger isn't trying to be for everyone. That's its power. This isn't a four-quadrant superhero movie—it's a mutant revenge fairytale. A cult comeback with brains, guts, and slime.
So yeah… I'm in.
Final Thought:
It's ugly. It's loud. It's unrated.
And come August 29, 2025, The Toxic Avenger might just be the messed-up anti-superhero movie we didn't know we needed.
Ready to dive face-first into radioactive cinema? Drop your favorite Troma moment—or your grossest genre memory—in the comments below.
