20. DANCE DANCE DEVOLUTION: Today’s viewing soiree must be some kind of mutant, freak, or genetic mishappening.

The Toxic Avenger had some trouble securing a distributor for wide release after its premiere, with one unnamed producer deeming the film “unreleasable” because of how violent it was. So it sat for nearly two years. What emerged is a movie a million times better than I thought it could be.

Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) is struggling. His wife Shelly (Rebecca O’Mara) has died from cancer, he’s raising his stepson Wade (Jacob Tremblay) and he can’t afford the surgery he needs, as he probably also got his cancer by working for Bi-Toxiphetamine Hydroxylate. At a company fundraiser, the owner, Bob (Kevin Bacon), turns him down for help in person.

Meanwhile, the entire city is in the grip of a gang called The Killer Nutz, run by Budd Berserk (Julian Kostov), Fritz Garbinger (Elijah Wood) — brother of Bob — and mobster Thad Barkabus (Jonny Coyne). After the fundraiser, Winston sees the gang try to kill reporter J.J. Doherty, (Taylour Paige) and is shot in the head and dumped into toxic radiation for his troubles. Of course, this turns him into the Toxic Avenger (Luisa Guerreiro in the suit voiced by Dinklage) who makes it his mission to destroy the gang, protect the people of his city and stop big pharma.

This movie feels like its reclaiming Toxie from cartoons, from mainstream fame, from being just another silly 80s movie. This is fun, it’s dark, it’s dangerous and it has a message. It’s punk and instead of having to say that it’s punk, it just is. Also, any movie that has its hero emerge and sing Motorhead’s “Overkill” while murdering movie punks is seemingly made for me.

The best part of this film? The marketing team and distributor, Cineverse, partnered with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to buy out $5 million of medical debt instead of using the money for marketing. Additionally, for every $1 million the movie makes at the box office, Cineverse agreed to buy out another million in debt (as of this writing — before the physical media release — it’s raised $15 million).

Cineverse’s SVP of Marketing, Lauren McCarthy, said, “We spent hours brainstorming how to close out the campaign and, while sending Toxie to the moon was appealing, no idea came close to combating unexpected medical debt for families. The Toxic Avenger had his entire life upended by crushing medical costs so, as Toxie says, “Sometimes you have to do something.””