Toxic Avenger (1984) trailer review

NAME OF FILM: The Toxic Avenger

YEAR RELEASED: 1985

GENRE OF TRAILER: Horror

MY MARK AFTER VIEWING: 6

What happened within the trailer?

Within this trailer we are shown the character of Melvin who works at a gym within Tromatown, Melvin is picked on by gym goers for being ‘inferior’ to them. They bully him to the point where he jumps out of a window and falls into a vat of toxic ooze on a truck parked below. Melvin then escapes the ooze and runs home whilst still being mocked.  The ooze transforms Melvin into ‘The Toxic Avenger’ who takes to the street and tries to fight crime in order to get back at the gym brutes who cause trouble in the city.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

Despite the budget Kaufman actually directed the movie well, I enjoyed the gore effects used such as the guy’s head about to be flattened by the weight machine at the gym, and it uses restricted narration to hint at the weight smashing into the man’s head. I also liked the creativity of the deaths used, such as with the thug and the milkshake maker that’s about to tear into his skin but again restricted narration is used to keep audiences guessing. I’d like to try and use innovative and interesting deaths within my trailer to make it memorable for audiences and make them want to see my movie. I like how you can understand the narrative quite clearly through watching the trailer which is a positive because it made me want to watch more and find out the full story.  I liked the music used for the trailer, in the beginning for the transformation scene Tchaikovsky’s Night on a bald mountain is used in a pleonastic way which adds an eeriness to the trailer and helps to set the mood of it, but later it also uses a rock soundtrack during the action based sequences of the trailer to establish what kind of movie it is. I like the use of the dialogue too, some of the dialogue is cut well with particular parts of the trailer such as the “just desserts” part and the thugs face is shoved into the ice cream machine. Another interesting and innovative thing about the trailer is that you never actually see the Toxic Avenger’s face throughout the trailer and the voiceover used actually says that to the audience too which helps to keep the audience captivated and want to see what he looks like. An interesting point about the voice over is that it chooses to say ‘The Toxic avenger’ over and over to really drill the name into the audience’s head and make it memorable for them.  The sound effects used for the trailer were good; it helped to get across the impact points between the Toxic Avenger and the villains throughout the trailer.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would have put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

The trailer was overly long and spanned on 3:10 which is too long for a trailer; it showed a lot of the movie which was unnecessary because I could have grasped the narrative and concept without so much unneeded dialogue.  Whilst the use of gore and the deaths were good, it gave a lot away and it wouldn't keep the audience’s attention when they saw particular parts in the movie because they had seen it in the trailer. I would want to avoid a running time as long as this trailer because it’s far too long in my opinion whereas most horror trailer now are around the 1:30 to 2:00 mark. I wouldn't want to give away too much by including too much content. The overuse of the voice over also makes the trailer seem more like a comedy than a horror too; some of the dialogue used for the voice over is very dated and ill-fitting for the trailer.

What was the trailer’s avg. score in class? Why did it receive that mark?

The average score given by the class was 4 and the reason it scored so low was a result of a few reasons. The first being the constant use of ‘The Toxic Avenger’ because it was too much and it drew you away from the action of the trailer. The collision cutting of the montage of deaths was good, however they used far too much which is what spoils the trailer. The other plus is the film contains a good narrative, but it is ruined through the use of too much content from the movie, it gives away too much of the narrative and the pacing is off in the trailer. The dialogue used for the voiceover is also very off putting and doesn't help to set the mood; it’s unfortunate after Tchaikovsky’s Night on a bald mountain is used to set up the horror aspect of the trailer and create an atmosphere to then be ruined by thrash metal music in the end. It’s these kinds of aspects that gave the trailer the score it received.

Favourite Image analysis

This scene from John Carpenter's THE THING takes place just as the thing is discovered and the husky is contained in the cage. Here we are presented with the dog in alien form, who has the intent to kill the members of the research facility. The gore in this image is very prominent, the creature is covered in both blood and slime and looks very unearthly. The lighting of the creature is high key lighting to really capture the gruesome nature of this. This is my favorite scene because John Carpenter has created fear and shock through the use of household pet, and the pace of the transformation shocked audiences through the context of it all. The effects are credited to Rob Bottin, a special effects auteur who also later worked on The Howling and Seven.

Contextually the dog is an adorable husky and one of the character's is begging not to kill it, and then it mutates into this amalgamation of fear and gore. This is a favourite of mine also for the fact that Carpenter utilises the freedom of an 18 certificate to use gore a lot to get scares from his audiences, an example of this would be They Live (1988) in which the aliens have a flesh like texture over their faces when they are viewed through the glasses.

Janet Staiger's Audience Studies theory relates here, because a lot of monster movies were being pumped our around this time so audiences resonated well with the context of the alien movies and the transformation scene in reminscent of both American Werewolf in London (1981) and Rob Bottin's The Howling (1981).

Focus group screening

Good Aspects of the trailer 

Good Acting x 5
Use of lighting
Narrative x 9
Gore Effects x 6
Dialogue x 6
Media and Sound effects x 12
Location x 7
Mise en scene x 5
Intertitles x 3
Ending x 2
Cinematography x 13
Tension


Points of improvement 

In need of jump scare x 2
Variety of pace needed x 7
Background music
Louder screams
Too light
Intertitles x 9
Sound effects x 9

AVG score for the trailer - 7.5

PRIEST (Rough Cut)

From the focus group screening, we are now able to see where we can cut certain parts in order to make it smoother and all the more horrifying.

6 Panel Practice Storyboards