Killer Tomatoes Eat France - Dir. John DeBello - 1991

Aw, the journey has ended for Daniel Schaub. Here is his last review:

As I come upon the final film in the Killer Tomatoes Franchise, I can't help but be overcome with a plethora of emotions: elation, sadness, joy, fickle, and whole bunch of adjectives that I'm too lazy to pull off of Thesaurus.com. It has been an interesting and bumpy ride through two enjoyable flicks, one really bad one and the last which... wait, let's not get ahead of ourselves.


“Killer Tomatoes Eat France” takes place in France of all places, why the hell would they actually shoot in the location mentioned in the title? Who delivers what they promise these days... Jesus. Anyway, Dr. Gangreen, with the help of Igor and some killer tomatoes, escapes from the bastille and plans to fulfill an ancient prophesy from Nicodemus that would make Igor the king of France, and somehow make Gangreen ruler of the world by association. Hey, he's a biologist, not a sociologist. Meanwhile, an American by the name of Michael (Marc Price from “Family Ties”) is backpacking through France when he meets a simple country girl, Marie (Angela Visser), who believes she doesn't fit the French ideal of beauty: homely and obese. Oh, those French people.

So, these two plot-lines intersect and Fuzzy Tomato shows up again... have I mentioned how much I hate Fuzzy Tomato? No? Well, let her rip... Fuzzy Tomato is merely an object for young children to latch onto and buy merchandise (which they make a joke about in “Return”) but he serves no purpose (other than Gangreen needing some of FT's tomato juice apparently). FT merely appears to do stupid physical comedy schtick that even the Three Stooges would say is too low, probably the Farrely Brothers would even say that it's too low. He appears way, way too much in this film and infuriates me every time he appears. Although, there was one scene where he started singing an Elton John-esque ballad which was kind of funny but that's only because of the person the song is representing, not because it is being sung by a tomato with hair. Do you ever watch some movie that you loved when you were a kid and your favorite character turns out to be the most annoying fucking one in the entire film (Shortround, anybody?)? Gah, fuck! Go to hell Fuzzy Tomato! You're ruining my childhood memories of the television show! Fuck you and the seedling you spawned from!

Anyway, much like “Strike Back”, “Eat France” is slow to spit out the jokes and a lot of them are inane. As you first start watching it though, your spirits are lifted because of the text jokes conveyed during the opening credits but it slows down... a lot. Some of the jokes have to build up on one another until they finally actually get a laugh. For instance, the character of Michael is trapped in the Basement of Death and is certain to face his demise, as Gangreen points out that Michael dies on page 43 of the script. Not that funny. Then he tells the “bimbo” playing Marie to actually read it. Oh, getting better. Michael thinks the basement is normal since it looks like any normal persons basement or garage. Back to not funny. Oh, the washing machine goes insane, board games are falling off the shelf, an electrical fire accidentally starts. Kind of amusing. Michael tears page 43 out of his script, burns it and walks off set. Getting funnier. Shit, John De Bello is standing behind the set with a sign around his neck reading “Plot Hole This Way”. Haha, success, guffaws all around. As you can see, this becomes tedious as it is necessary for every joke in the movie apparently.

Also returning from “Strike Back” is the fact that the Killer Tomatoes have faces... well, some of them... only five really, but hey at least the eyes are articulated. The Killer Tomatoes with faces do look a lot better in this film and can speak English meaning that we don't have scenes where characters repeat whatever the tomatoes said... well, sometimes, because FT is mentally handicapped and can't actually form cogent English. There are three villainous killer tomatoes, each with a special personality. You would hope that this leads to some nice interplay humor, kind of like the Three Stooges or the Marx brothers but it never materializes which sucks. It's nice that the tomatoes do look good now that they've been given fully functioning faces but I still miss the normal tomatoes who somehow kill people and you're not really sure how. Not to mention that when the tomatoes fight the French army they use tomatoes that are faceless, so why not have consistency? Well, Gangreen says the only way to make supreme killer tomatoes, the ones with faces, is to get FT's tomato juice but he waits until the last minute to ever use it. Whatever.

More or less, “Eat France” is funnier than “Strike Back” mostly because of the jokes at the expense of the French. Did you know that everyone is France has the nickname Frenchy? Still, it pales in comparison to the first two films. It is quite obvious that De Bello and gang were running out of ideas, they should have just rolled the last two films into one and packaged it that way. Oh well, I can't blame him for trying to have fun, even if it wasn't that much fun for me.

Apparently, there is a remake of the first film slated for 2011 which leaves me in a quandary. Even though I would love to see “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” on the big screen with a bunch of friends, who in Hollywood thought that the built in market would be there? Is a remake necessary? I think I actually now why, just stick around for my article on remakes and why they are so popular, coming up next time.