Warning: Major spoilers ahead for The Toxic Avenger

Macon Blair’s outrageous update on the 1984 cult classic The Toxic Avenger earns its Unrated designation by leaning into the giddy, gruesome gore that made the original so memorable. Starring Peter Dinklage and Luisa Guerreiro as the voice actor and costumed actor for the mutant hero, The Toxic Avenger busts superhero stereotypes in just about every way imaginable.

While 2023’s The Toxic Avenger (with a 2025 release date) is technically a remake of the 1984 original, it’s really a reboot for the entire Toxic Avenger franchise, which includes four feature films, a comic book series, an animated TV series, and even a stage musical. Blair borrowed the central elements of the original hero and story, but put his own delightfully demented spin on everything.

Perhaps the main common thread between the 1984 and 2023 versions of The Toxic Avenger is the unrelenting onslaught of gore and violence. As proudly-labeled splatter films, both movies ensure that the screen is soaked in blood and viscera throughout most of the narrative, leaving morality in the rearview mirror in favor of stomach-churning gore. We’ve ranked The Toxic Avenger’s goriest moments, from least to most disgusting, specifically so you don’t have to.

10

Mel Ferd Gets Harpooned Out The Window

The movie opens with a reporter named Mel Ferd (an homage, as it’s the original Toxic Avenger’s real name) and his whistleblower colleague seeking to download damning data that will destroy the corporation that’s been poisoning the citizens of St. Roma’s Village. Unfortunately for Ferd, the corporation’s freakish thugs, the Killer Nutz, track them down and confront him in his office.

Ferd is sH๏τ multiple times, getting up defiantly each time. The Nutz finally finish the job by blasting him out the window with a mᴀssive harpoon, skewering him and sending his body crashing to the pavement below. It’s far from the most disgusting moment in the movie, but it’s a bloody harbinger of the violence to come.

9

Toxie Strong-Arms A Low-Level Enforcer

Toxie’s first kill was featured in The Toxic Avenger‘s red band trailer, and it shows off the mutant hero’s next-level raw strength right away. After a near-run-in with a corporate thug intimidating his elderly neighbor, Toxie runs into him in an alley just after his transformation.

After taking a bullet in the arm and immediately healing, an enraged Toxie rushes the man and rips his arm right off his shoulder, yielding an appropriate geyser of blood for a splatter film. It’s remarkably bloody, but the man survives the encounter, making it decidedly less disgusting than other moments.

8

Bozo Bites The Head That Feeds

Toward the end of The Toxic Avenger, Kevin Bacon’s corrupt businessman Bob Garbinger seeks to power himself up with a serum that mimics Winston Gooze’s unique genetic makeup, which allowed him to survive being thrown into toxic waste. Naturally, it backfires, and transforms the character, who was a stand-in for the original movie’s comically evil villain “Bozo”, into a hairy, misshapen beast.

Bozo encounters his father, who runs the business poisoning the city of St. Roma’s Village, and in his monstrous form attacks his father, biting off his scalp and mᴀssacring his ᴀssociates in the process. It’s a grisly moment shown in all its scalp-peeling glory.

7

Toxie Offers The Killer Nutz Guitarist A Snack

Why not keep the flaying theme going? In the course of the Killer Nutz on-stage mᴀssacre, Toxie goes so far as to tackle the guitarist and rip his beard off, skin and all. He then chokes him by stuffing his own beard down his throat, and while that doesn’t kill him on the spot, which is the case for so many other Toxie victims, it’s a disgusting moment because it’s undoubtedly painful.

6

A Toxie Mop-Toss Two-Fer

Toxie’s mᴀssacre of the demented rock band/corporate thugs The Killer Nutz is a highlight scene of the movie, but for the sake of this list we are breaking the conflict into distinct kills. One of the funniest comes towards the end of the fight, when Toxie throws his ever-burning, acidic mop like a spear.

It goes through one band member, causing him to erupt in a rain of blood, and lands on the turntables of the band’s DJ, frying her immediately as the tables explode with electricity. It’s a comical yet extremely gory moment that will make those who stand with Toxie get up and cheer.

5

Toxie Gives The Driver A Head Start

After removing the thug’s arm earlier in the movie, Toxie is attacked by some of his ᴀssociates. They all die in brutal fashion, but the car’s driver gets the honor of having Toxie pop his head clean off his shoulders in a spectacular spray of blood. The head is discarded, falls under the tires, and is then run over with a sickening crack and splatter. It’s one of the simpler kills, but still perfectly disgusting.

4

Toxie’s Mop Leaves A Robber Speechless

Another kill that was teased in the red band trailer came during Toxie’s defense of the restaurant, in an updated version of a scene straight out of the 1984 original. As several robbers hold the entire restaurant up at gunpoint, Toxie literally kicks in the back door to confront them. The first thug is unlucky enough not to realize what kind of a threat Toxie is, and pays for it.

One broad swipe of his acidic mop takes the robber’s lower mouth clean off, and makes a gruesome mess of the cheek, chin and neck flesh that doesn’t come off. The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ tongue hanging lifelessly with no jaw to keep it in place makes the entire image downright revolting, and is one of the first demonstrations of the power of Toxie’s mop. It’s almost a shame it was CGI and not done with practical effects.

3

Toxie (Sort Of) Beheads The Killer Nutz Lead Singer

The most gruesome death from the Killer Nutz mᴀssacre is undoubtedly that of their lead singer, Budd Berserk. Toxie manages to swipe off only the top half of Budd’s skull, in sort of a reverse of the restaurant robber moment. Budd’s exposed brain quickly explodes from the burning acid of Toxie’s mop.

What makes the moment all the more disgusting is that Budd inexplicably doesn’t die right then. He survives with only the bottom half of his head and brain intact, with his body moving around like, pardon the pun, a chicken with his head cut off. It’s one of the true gut-churning kills in the movie, but it’s one of the most purely “Toxie” moments.

2

Toxie Puts Bozo In A Blender

The Toxic Avenger ends with a superhero movie-style clash between the hero, Toxie, and his enemy Bob Garbinger, who has mutated into a savage monster. At the apex of their fight, Toxie lifts Bob up and smashes him head-first through a car engine.

Toxie invites his ally J.J. Doherty to turn the car on, which hilariously/disgustingly turns the engine into a blender, tearing Garbinger apart and spraying blood and gore in all directions. It’s an appropriately disgusting final kill for Toxie, and it ends the movie with a bloody exclamation point.

1

Toxie’s Alternative Style Of Disembowelment

The reason this moment is at the top of the list is that it was so gross that even the movie’s creators didn’t let the camera linger on it too long. During Toxie’s restaurant rescue, he destroys every bad guy he encounters, spraying blood and guts across the restaurant’s floors and windows (and terrified patrons).

One baddie gets it worse than all the rest though. In his murderous fury, Toxie reaches his hand into the man’s exposed ʙuтт, and pulls a stringy mᴀss of guts out as if he’s emptying out a pumpkin for carving. It’s the most disgusting moment in The Toxic Avenger by a decent margin, but because of the concept as opposed to the amount of blood.