Class Trailer Reviews: Toxic Avenger

Toxic Avenger

Year: 1985

Genre: Horror

Personal Mark: 5

Toxic avenger, in my opinion, is a poorly made horror film trailer. The chief reason of which is the failed bid for comedy. It is labelled a horror but the amount of poor puns and cheap laughs could easily have swayed it under a comedy heading. This is again supported by the sheer lack of any horror. Other than the acting nothing was truly frightening.  The catch phrase is over used and the film trailer itself is dragged out. The runtime is far too long and makes it hard to keep the audience’s attention. Location also plays a key role in the trailer. Too much time is spent on the restaurant and the lack of diverse locations eventually begins to bore the audience. However from a historical context this may be too harsh. I’m simply viewing it with the power of hindsight, against modern day horrors with huge budgets.

This being said the trailer did have a few good points. The strange body movement and facial expressions allowed for some smiles. They kept true to Propp’s narrative stages as far as we can see, endorsing common horror methods such as body horror with the fryer scene, and the girl in need. This follows Laura Mulveys theory of the male gaze and follows it to the letter.  It is also complimented by its small budget.  With restricted locations due to budget and very few special effects they are still in keeping with the usual narrative structure, even if the comedy seemed to play a larger role than the cheap horror effects, through poor lighting and props.

Overall our class average for the film was 3.5. The main reasons that came out to support such as small score were the low  budget effects; for an alleged $500,000 we would have expected more than shaking hands in oil and strawberry sauce.  However the main reason shared amongst my peers was the comedic undertone to everything. If it had been labelled a comedy we feel it would have been more deserving of marks, but the sheer lack of horror, physical or psychological, left a stale taste in our mouth.