The Decade List: Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000)

Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV - dir. Lloyd Kaufman

In an effort to keep The Decade List from becoming too high brow, I present Citizen Toxie, the fourth installment of Troma's most popular film (it hilariously apologizes for parts 2 and 3) and the second of three recent Troma films (Terror Firmer and Poultrygeist being the others) to exceed its company's legacy of micro-budget gross-outs. Citizen Toxie is crass, obnoxious and, surprisingly, quite funny. A shabby mix of Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz and the Bizarro episode of Seinfeld, the film places Toxie, the first superhero ever from New Jersey, in a mix of interdimensional travel after failing to save the school of retarded children from a group of diaper-wearing terrorists. He's planted into Amortville, no relation to, but probably a close suburb of, Morteville from John Waters' Desperate Living, the lawless counter of his beloved Tromaville, NJ. I tried to find Citizen Toxie's most inspired moment, a send-up of Citizen Kane's newsreel sequence, on the Internet with no avail. Citizen Toxie is the best sort of tasteless; its reflexive grotesqueness puts to shame its low-minded Hollywood counterparts, not to mention the slew of putrid imitators (hi, Gutterballs).

With: Dave Mattey, Clyde Lewis, Heidi Sjursen, Joe Fleishaker, Paul Kyrmse, Michael Budinger, Lisa Terezakis, Debbie Rochon, Dan Snow, Ron Jeremy, Barry Brisco, Corey Feldman, James Gunn, Jason Sklar, Randy Sklar, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Julie Strain, Eli Roth, Lloyd Kaufman
Screenplay: Patrick Cassidy, Gabriel Friedman, Trent Haaga, Corey Kalman, Lloyd Kaufman, Matt Levin
Cinematography: Brendan Flynt
Music: Wes Nagy
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Troma

Premiere: 2000 October (Sitges Film Festival)
US Premiere: 2001 November 2