Prime Time: Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes! (1978)

When I finally sat down to watch Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes! I was ready for some dumb fun. You can't read that title and not have an idea of what to expect. And I'd already seen a few episodes of the cartoon series when I was young, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the world created within the film. Or so I thought.

Directed by John De Bello, who also co-wrote the script with Costa Dillon and J. Stephen Peace, this shapeless and rambling spoof  shows the devastating effects of a mass fruit attack (a tomato is still a fruit, right, or am I getting it wrong nowadays?) through a series of skits, very loose narrative scenes, and low-to-no-budget special effects.

There's not a lot to thoroughly critique when it comes to this movie, and it perhaps serves as a reminder that not every movie should, or needs, to be critically appraised and dissected. The cast are all game to go along with the material, but I doubt many have any other movies on their CV, the technical side of things is crude, which also adds to the charm, and all I can say about the tomatoes is that they generally look like tomatoes.

I'll mention David Miller, George Wilson, Sharon Taylor, Ernie Meyers, and Eric Christmas, purely because I am used to mentioning some of the cast members when discussing movies, but I wouldn't be able to pick any of them out of a line-up, sadly, and that's just after my first viewing of the film. Having said that, the main thing is that they did their part to get this silliness onscreen, and well done to them for that.

Easy to dismiss, you would be wrong to view this as nothing but a curio piece best consigned to the dustbin. It's actually one of the first films to throw around so many gags while spoofing specific types of b-movies. I am sure we'd still have the likes of Airplane! and Top Secret! coming along, especially after the fun delivered by The Groove Tube and The Kentucky Fried Movie, but this tomato-infested film holds up as a template for a number of finer comedies. If only it was funnier, this would be held in the same regard as some of the others I have just mentioned, because the many failings can be overlooked while laughs are being earned.

John De Bello has directed six features (at this time). Four of those are about killer tomatoes. You have to admire his dedication to the idea, something he has tried to improve and polish over time, and this is was the first time his ideas actually began to . . . bear fruit.

4/10

You can . . . ketchup with the movie on disc here.
Americans can get red right on Blu here.