Toxic Avenger - 1986

Directors: Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman

Writer: Joe Ritter

Starring: Mitch Cohen, Mark Torgl, Andree Maranda, Pat Ryan Jr.

"All right, everybody, drop your tacos or I'll blow your brains out!" The debut of the infamous Troma Entertainment, Toxic Avenger tells the story of a 98-pound-weakling (Torgl) who works as a health club's mop boy who takes revenge on those who wronged him after falling into a barrel of toxic waste and becoming a monster (Cohen), going on to fight crime in the town of Tromaville, New Jersey.

This is supposed to be one of those so-bad-it's-good films, but for me, it's just so-bad-it's-bad. The acting is simultaneously subpar and over-the-top, the writing is awful, certain shots are reused (for budgetary purposes, I'm sure)...oh, and to make the audience immediately hate some of the many antagonists, they're depicted as creating a point system for running over people in their cars, the first of which depicted is a small child, who gets hit before having his skull burst after it's backed over. Wonderful gore for gore's sake. I don't know how the film has developed its cult following (or the several sequels it produced), but I'm okay with this getting remade.