Toxie is back, baby. And, based on the new trailer for the upcoming Toxic Avenger flick, the reboot appears to be bloodier, funnier and more unhinged than its predecessor. Interestingly, though, after the official red band trailer dropped this week, fans weren’t just buzzing about radioactive gore or Peter Dinklage’s grotesque glow-up for the 2025 movie release. I saw that they were drawing some unexpected, and hilarious, comparisons to another film that’s headed to theaters soon.
The Toxic Avenger Trailer Features Plenty Of Gore
Troma fans and lovers of its upcoming awesomely cheesy movie got a major treat when Cineverse and Legendary dropped the new unrated trailer for Macon Blair’s upcoming superhero movie. Starring Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a lowly janitor turned deformed vigilante via toxic waste, the trailer wastes no time throwing viewers headfirst into its chaotic mix of guts, piss, mutants and mayhem.
This new version doesn’t hold back, to say the least. According to the promo material, not a single grotesque frame was cut to satisfy censors, which is exactly the kind of commitment fans of the original 1984 cult classic expect. The stellar cast includes Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Jacob Tremblay, and Taylour Paige, and it’s clear this isn’t some disposable B-movie cash-in. It’s proudly leaning into the absurd, grotesque spirit that made Troma famous.
Critics seem to be on board as well; the film currently holds a 92% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on early reviews, which praise its off-the-wall energy and surprisingly tight direction from Macon Blair.
Fans Are Comparing One Aspect Of The Trailer To One Belonging To A Comedic Franchise
Beyond the gore and goo, one Reddit thread spun into an unexpected direction. After watching Dinklage’s Toxie rip a guy’s arm off in the trailer, on user linked it to the upcoming Naked Gun reboot due to the on-screen arm removals. That led more fans to chime in. Here is a rundown of some of the best comments:
- “Between this and the Naked Gun trailer, this is going to be a good year for people who like seeing dudes’ arms get ripped off.” – @farceur318
- “Hell yeah. Those of us who love seeing dudes get their arms ripped off haven’t had many wins recently” – @robostock
- “Bad guys getting their arms ripped off is TIGHT.” – @Corgiboom2
- “And it’s super easy. Barely an inconvenience!” – @chaotic4059
- “Gonna need you to rip my arm all the way off about that.” – @Careless-Dark-1324
- “Popeye the Slayer Man, and he beats him with his own arm too. Extra points.” – @XtraHott
Other commenters quickly followed with a list of past limb-loss classics, from Renfield to Hot Tub Time Machine to The Suicide Squad. As more users piled on with jokes, it became clear that The Toxic Avenger might end up unintentionally sharing weird, gory DNA with the Naked Gun reboot, especially since both films seem to embrace slapstick violence and physical comedy at their extremes.
The fact that The Toxic Avenger, a film with pee-play and exploding limbs, is being mentioned in the same breath as The Naked Gun, a franchise known for deadpan absurdism and wordplay, is kind of perfect. Both represent a kind of cinematic chaos, one bloody, one bumbling, and both are proudly un-serious at a time when many franchises still take themselves far too seriously.
Whether you’re into R-rated mutant revenge stories or absurd cop spoof comedies, 2025 is shaping up to be a banner year for the strange, silly and slightly unhinged. And, if the idea of a double feature that starts with The Naked Gun and ends with The Toxic Avenger, a movie that nearly suffered the same fate as the completed but cancelled Batgirl, sounds like your kind of evening, well, you’re not alone.
As one Redditor put it, when it comes to people who enjoy arm removals: “We eatin’ good this year.” The Naked Gun hits theaters August 1, with The Toxic Avenger following close behind on August 29.
