Killer Tomatoes Eat France

Dir: John De Bello

1992

***

I'm a huge fan of John De Bello's Killer Tomatoes series but the fourth and final installment is the franchise at its weakest, as is so often the case. It's not at all a bad film, just not as clever or satirical as the first three. There are actually elements of Killer Tomatoes Eat France that make it one of my favourites in many ways, the main one being that it incorporates many ideas and characters featured in the animated series. The animated series was criminally overlooked and underappreciated in the early 90s, it did everything De Bello couldn't do in live action and it was gloriously silly, as well as being quite mature in what is spoofed and referenced. Its only mistake was to go computer animated in season two but its characters were brilliant. Also, this time round the tomatoes speak English and all have unique character traits, making the film even more of a b-movie farce, rather than a clever social satire. It's all good as far as I'm concerned, although I loved the way the first films constantly broke the fourth wall, I'm glad they didn't over do the same trick. John Astin returns once more as Professor Mortimer Gangreen as does his assistant Igor (played by Steve Lundquist). In this episode, Gangreen discovers that Igor just so happens to own a 'really big' castle just outside of Paris and decides to set up his new lab there just after breaking out of prison. He also soon realizes that Igor looks remarkably like King Louis XVII (also played by Steve Lundquist) and decides to stage a second French Revolution (a reverse of the first one) in order for Igor to take the throne and for them to take over the world from there on. Not quite the political satire of the first but that is a certain something about it. It's a b-movie b-movie from there on really but there are plenty of great lines and hilarious scenes to enjoy, the highlight for me being the giant tomato lurking in the castle awaiting a coach-load of American tourists. The silly humour, awesome puppetry and the brilliant John Astin make it a joy to watch, but the last scene of the film is now a rather sad one, where Astin's Professor Gangreen escapes in a hot-air balloon not before declaring that he'll be back to reap revenge in the next movie, a movie that never happened. A brilliant, funny, intelligent, overlooked and misunderstood series that deserves far more love.