The foundation stone of the Troma trash movie empire, this signals a slight shift of effort from the production of unfunny gross-out comedies (Stuck on You!, The First Turn-On) to a distinctive genre mutation which gene-splices the fart-puke-boobs gaggery with extreme splatter, comic-book superheroics and embittered satiricial swipes at big business. The Troma style perhaps predates the anything-gross-for-a-laugh approach of the Farrelly Brothers (who also made a film called Stuck on You), but real seaminess between good-natured gags makes for a shifting tone that too often gets beyond the boundaries of *good *bad taste into merely tiresome unpleasantness.
You can gauge your likely appreciation of the film by whether you find any of these incidents actually funny: a) a guy in a tutu duped into kissing a sheep, b) a ten-year-old knocked off his bicycle and having his head crushed by laughing hit-and-run drivers, c) a girl masturbating over photographs of murdered children, d) an obese man having his insides pulled out, e) a middle-aged dwarf lady shoved into a spin-dryer, f) a guide dog shotgunned dead by a robber who then tries to rape its owner. If none of these raise a smile, buy something else.
*Though the effects are gloopy, the filmmaking – which is down to Troma supremo Lloyd Kaufman – is strictly entry-level. ‘Toxie’ has returned in four sequels, and you get much the same bad taste in the mouth from the Class of Nuke ‘Em High films, Troma’s War, Terror Firmer, Tromeo & Juliet, Sgt Kabukiman NYPD, etc. *
