Ripe with the success of The Toxic Avenger, Troma dipped back into the toxic waste pool with this horror/comedy that has an odd charm that's seemingly lacking from modern day Troma productions (Citizen Toxie excluded).

It starts off easily enough as a toxic spill at a nuclear power plant starts mutating the local kids at the Tromaville High School next door which is witnessed when one of the geekier students starts to mutate and leaps out of a second story window before melting down into a mess of goo. From there it's what could be described as a "loose" plot that involves a gang of "cretins" (former honour society kids who's become drug pushing thugs) harassing the school and selling "atomic" weed, a young couple (played by Gilbert Brenton and the cute Janelle Brady) who smoke said pot and start having hallucinations/deformaties (Brenton starts killing off the "cretins" and Brady spits up a "monster baby" which later mutates into a giant creature) and all sorts of other off-beat happenings only Troma could dream-up.

And it's all done with a goofy tone and packed with juvenile humour, has lots of alright gore effects (like the "hand down the throat" moment) and has a likeable cast behind it. It just seems that Troma's taken the "everything but the kitchen sink" attitude here as it's loaded with everything you'd expect from a B-movie, and even more you wouldn't. Plus that creature at the end is probably the most impressive monster to ever set foot in a Troma movie, it looks like it could belong in a higher-budgeted movie even.

Probably Troma's best known flick after Toxie, check this out if you dig their demented brand of filmmaking. Review based on unrated version.

Followed by two sequels. (Chris Hartley, 5/13/04)

Directed By: Richard W. Haines, Samuel Weil (Lloyd Kaufman).
Written By: Richard W. Haines, Lloyd Kaufman, Mark Rudnitsky, Stuart Strutin.

Starring: Janelle Brady, Gilbert Brenton, Robert Prichard, R.L. Ryan.