‘The Toxic Avenger’ – Macon Blair Previews Gory Miss Meat Scene That Packs in the Troma Tributes

Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman may have officially passed the mop to The Toxic Avenger filmmaker Macon Blair at SDCC last month, but Blair’s gonzo reimagining more than speaks for itself when it comes to its reverence for the original Troma cult classic.

In The Toxic Avenger, Primetime Emmy-winning actor Peter Dinklage stars as Winston Gooze, a struggling janitor who’s instantly transformed into an unlikely hero by a freak toxic accident. Winston’s rise from outcast to savior is paved with buckets of blood and radioactive insanity, of course, but the new Toxic Avenger never forgets its Troma roots.

Expect Easter eggs and references aplenty, especially when it comes to the fictional fast food joint Miss Meat. An early scene sees Winston Gooze honing his new skills against a group of thugs, but it also doubles as a massive love letter to the original 1984 film.

That was, of course, by design.

Macon Blair tells Bloody Disgusting, “Toxie fucking up bad guys in the fast food place in the original was one of the scenes that always stuck with me, and so of course we wanted to nod to that a little bit. But it’s also like our version of that scene that exists in most of the Batman variations, where he appears in his suit for the first time and confronts some villains, and nobody knows what to make of him, and it’s all very disorienting and chaotic.

“We wanted to do our version of that ‘I’m the Batman!’ kind of scene.”

It’s one scene of many in the new Toxic Avenger movie that’s absolutely loaded with nods to Troma and the original film, so much so that even its creator lost count.

“Oh, jeez, I have no idea what the total number is, but we had some set design that references Belgoody Bail Bonds, which was meant as a nod to Mayor Belgoody (played by Pat Ryan) in the original,“ Blair explains. “The backdrop of the newscasters commenting on things throughout the movie is the original Troma cityscape. The font used in the restaurant signage was a font used in some Troma things. We wanted to drop these little winks in throughout just as a way of saying hello to the old school fans.”

Those old school fans will immediately register the significance of seeing a kid on a bike; Macon Blair is counting on that when it comes to his wry wink in The Toxic Avenger.

Blair teases not to expect references to the original to play out the same way, however.

“We didn’t really have a place in the script or schedule to specifically crush a kid’s head– and honestly that was okay with me because you can’t top that moment from the original–but we did put a kid in a helmet in the background of the scene, again as a way of winking at the fans.”

Speaking of a gory kill, the Miss Meat scene is also just one of many ways that The Toxic Avenger cuts loose with the gore.

The director breaks down his approach to the violence, “We wanted the gore to have a kind of lo-fi feeling.”

“So, for example, when the guy gets his head knocked off, we had a dummy hung upside down with basically a bucket of blood inside his chest, and we swung the mop across the frame, and the head came off, and the blood just spilled downwards. When you see it in the movie, the movement of the blood looks a little bit off–it’s not being pumped, it’s being pulled by gravity–and that was the kind of slightly janky quality we were hoping for.“

“I was lucky enough to get to work with an amazing production designer named Alex Cameron and a great set dec named Liz Boller, a great graphic designer named John Pundt, and all of the artists who worked with them; it was just a killer team,“ Blair says of the detailed production design in this scene. “So much of it was a matter of me giving them a general set of ideas about how these spaces could look and function, and then they would drill down on the specifics, the wallpaper and tiles and napkin holders and everything.

“It was a really delightful part of the process because it felt like they would take these broad concepts and refine them in ways that hadn’t even occurred to me. My favorite part of getting to do this is being in collaboration with brilliant people and getting to take their ideas and run with them.”

Grab your tickets to see The Toxic Avenger in theaters on August 29!

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