THE TOXIC AVENGER Remake Director Explains the Whole "Butt Guts" Thing

One of the craziest things that was brought up about The Toxic Avenger remake came from the film’s sound editor, Casey Genton, several months ago, and it involved “Butt Guts.” As you might imagine that piqued the interest of fans. Genton said at the time:

When they have tested it, fans of the film have been over the moon with the film. [...] It's pretty out there. I think it's a different crack. They're giving the fans what they want, for sure. There's no lack of — I know everybody references the little kid's head getting run over and stuff. I think that there was an iteration of the film that didn't have enough of that, so they made a very — I don't want to ruin it. But it has, it's been nicknamed the 'butt guts' scene, and it's probably the best way to match that 'head getting run over' energy that everybody's looking for. So it's in line with the fan base, and I think it's hilarious."

So, what exactly is going on with the “Butt Guts” scene? Well, during an interview with /Film, the director of the film was asked about it and what it means. This was his response:

“So you go to make the movie and there is the finite budget, and so there's the scene and you have to operate within those bounds. And so we shot a scene where Toxie, he's fighting the bad guys in the restaurant. And it was actually done entirely from — as soon as the fight starts, once the first guy gets chopped in the face, you don't really see what's happening. You see, from the outside perspective, blood splashing on the window and that sort of thing. But then as we got into post-production, I think because Legendary was pleased with what they were seeing or they were excited about it or whatever, they came back and they said, ‘Would you want to add some additional shots?’ Not like a whole new sequence or not a whole new character, but just literally one day's worth of shooting just for some fun stuff. We can sort of adjust the budget to do that."

“And so some of those shots that we did were just some little digital effects that Phil Tippet studio did. But one of them was what became known as the Butt Guts Unit, which came about like this. And I'm so glad you started the interview with, ‘Did it make you laugh and was that the justification for it?’ Never a better example than the Butt Guts, which I was like, ‘Yeah, dude, we could just get these little out-of-context flashes of what Toxie is doing in that restaurant.’ We were sound mixing the movie at night because I was actually working on another movie during the day, so everybody was kind of tired and punchy. And I was like, ‘I think what we should do is Toxie will take his mop and he's going to rip this guy's pants down.’ And one of the assistant editors on the movie, named Delaney, she just goes like, ‘He's going to rip his guts out of his butt?’ And I was like, ‘Nope ... yes.’

“And then it became writing the executive of Legendary, these very responsible, powerful people, ‘He's going to put his fist in his butt and pull his guts out of his butt.’ Send! And then I woke up the next morning and was like, ‘Oh, I should have kind of added some context or explained myself a little bit better.’ For some reason, he wrote back, he was like, ‘Yeah, dude, we can do that.’ And so then we ended up in Los Angeles, we had one day of shooting in a special effects shop where they created a fake butt that had a cavity in the middle that you could pull intestines out. And so we had a dedicated unit whose sole purpose was to shoot that. It was just two shots in the movie, but it was one of those ones where it was like, ‘Yes, that makes me laugh. And hopefully enough people will have a similar reaction to that.’”

Well, that just sounds wonderful! Fans of movies with lots of blood and guts are going to love this film. There’s no doubt this scene is going to be completely bonkers.

Peter Dinklage stars as “downtrodden janitor Winston Gooze who, after falling into a vat of toxic waste, becomes none other than The Toxic Avenger. This timely reimagining is up to its eyeballs in environmental themes as Winston goes up against the evil forces of greed and corruption to save his son, his friends, and his community.”

The synopsis also notes, “Even as this story exists on its own terms, the spirit undoubtedly remains connected to the original. Troma fans old and new will be pleased to know that the film has been rated “R” for violence and gore – as per Troma tradition.”

The movie also stars Elijah Wood, Julia Davis, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, and Jacob Tremblay. There’s still no release date yet, but the first reactions to the movie prove that audiences are very happy with how it turned out! I can’t wait to see it!