L'Attaque des tomates tueuses

I will be the first to admit I absolutely ADORE this film. I absolutely love the sendup of horror films that seemed to exist up to that time. However, it really is a bad film.

I gave it a 5. Why, I think it is honestly a movie you will either love or hate. It is hard to be ambivalent about this film. The effects are cheesy, the dialogue silly, and the concept even sillier. Yet, I don't think it could of been pulled off any better. I think everyone should check this film out at least once, but do it with friends.

"Could someone please pass the ketchup?"

This film was perhaps THE big low-budget/cult/parody flick in its time. While it doesn't create belly laughs from start to finish, it does have some truly hilarious moments. My favorite scene has dozens of tomatoes just floating in a lake, attacking some unsuspecting summer-campers(believe me, you'll positively crack up when you see the underwater footage!). Also, watch for the sequence in which grown men blast with shotguns tomatoes that were obviously rolled at them off-camera.

Attack of the killer tomatoes is low-budget's answer to summer blockbuster Snakes on a Plane. Technically, it's the other way around, since AOTKT came first, but whatever. It's dumb, it has a small cult following, and you understand the plot when you read the title.

Tomatoes, you know, the kind in salads, attack people. This is shown in the movie, mostly as tomatoes being thrown at people with tomatoes on the ground everywhere. This continues for an entire movie, which might sound repetitive, but there's other side-tracks of the story as well, which more often than not are very funny.

The production values are non-existent but the filmmakers do their best to cover them up("I'm sorry, gentlemen, for the size of this room", the general says and then all the scientists climb over each other to get a seat) There are lots of silly plot points and many totally unnecessary, some funny and some not. Whenever it gets draggy, there's usually something really funny just in time. That's not bad.

If you need to have this told to you, then you will not like this movie, but I'll tell you anyway: Do NOT take this movie seriously. Enjoy the musical numbers, the stupid "Jaws"-like tomato attacks, the crazy characters, and all the other details that in then end makes AOTKT a fun experience.

The trailers before the movie on my VHS copy are for a Hannah Barberra cartoon ("Yogi bear in the Arabian Nights" or something) which shows you who the marketing guys thought their target audience was and, taken on that kind of dumb stupid cartoon level, this is one of the funniest things I have seen for years. I laughed out loud several times whilst completely sober and on my own. Yes, its story structure is an utter mess, yes, the acting, directing, editing production values and sound (especially the sound) are awful, yes, a lot of the gags just don't work - the timing is all over the place sometimes jokes are rushed, other times they are stretched out way beyond their worth but as a whole "Tomatoes" is undeniably funny. I'm afraid I nearly wet myself when the Adolf Hitler line came as the payoff to a what looked like a lame running gag.

Reading some of the reviews here I find it hard to understand how anyone can be disappointed in this movie. It lays its stall out in the first two minutes. Girl is attacked by a tomato - then some of the funniest opening credits ever. It is so preposterous it defies criticism. This is the purest form of High Concept movie making. "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"... unless you didn't actually KNOW what a tomato was how could anyone think this is anything other than what it is - a dumb, stupid, funny movie? and I defy anyone who watches this film not to have the theme song running around their head for days afterwards.

Think of this movie as being made by Matt Stone & Trey Parker (the guys behind South Park etc.) and you get the idea - though in my opinion "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" is a lot funnier than "Cannibal, the Musical" or "Orgazmo".

Definitely a movie to watch with your brain, and any critical faculties you may think you have, switched very, very off.

"Tomatoes" has been unfairly maligned as one of the worst movies of all time. This is too bad, because the film is really a satire of cheap, bad sci-fi movies. So what better way to satirize a cheap, bad sci-fi movie than by unintentionally making one?

If you saw this movie as a child or teenager, scenes will be indelibly imprinted upon your mind. The guy taking a shower in a hallway; the dubbed voice of the Japanese scientist; the helicopter crash (which wasn't supposed to happen...the pilot came in at too steep of an angle and crushed the back rotor blade. The pilot lost control and crashed the copter. The producers, not wanting to waste this precious filming of an actual accident, put it in the film and instructed actor Jack Riley to pretend to crawl away from the smoldering wreckage); the tomato chasing a woman in a parking lot, with oh-so-noticeable wheels propelling it forward; ah, the magic of film.

Brought to you in part by future California state Assemblyman and State Senator J. Stephen "Rock" Peace.