The Vegetables of Doom!

Return of The Killer Tomatoes
1988 | Color | 1Hr 38 Min | Horror, Comedy | PG | New World


Director: John De Bello

Writers: 

Stephen Andrich 

John De Bello

Stars: 

Anthony Starke

George Clooney

Karen M. Waldron

John Astin

Mad scientist Professor Gangreen is cooking up the second coming of the Great Tomato Uprising, in which music converted tomatoes into human form to war against mankind. Pizza delivery man Chad Finletter must save the world and beautiful tomato-girl Tara.

After Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and his flop, Happy Hour John De Bello tries to strike gold once again with Return of the Killer Tomatoes! Why you might ask? Well hell if I know I did not get the dark humor of the first one. Yet us kids of the 80's embraced the silliness of Return that it somehow paved its way into the heart of us kids. 

This being the sequel to Attac of the Killer Tomatoes we also would receive Killer Tomatoes Strike Back in 1990 and in 1991 Killer Tomatoes Eat France! Of Course for the sequel Return Of The Killer Tomatoes, the story picks up ten years later and is notable for George Clooney in one of his frist major film roles.

The Tomato franchise will go on to live in our hearts through video games as well. Who could forget the incredibly long and hard 8 Bit video game? Along with an earlier game for the PC based on the original movie. Now the video game was based on the Saturday Morning Cartoon! Yep, thats right we had a cartoon that ran on the Fox Box in 1990! We were also treated to a Game Boy game as well. 

Let's face the facts the cartoon was probably more entertaining the movie. Also in 2008, we were graced with a comic book and a few novels sprinkled throughout the same decade. Will we ever be able to stop these Killer Tomatoes? So far yes but beware the talk of a remake looms in the air.

Now we can not fool our self there is a great cast hidden within this flick. Coming fresh off of the TV show Beans and Baxotr the beautiful Karen Waldron makes her big screen debut and follows this movie up with yet another food-themed flick Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle the same year! (Click on my lick for that review.) And speaking of beautiful the sexiest man alive George Cloney has arrived. Even though us horror hounds know he was in Horror High first everybody loves to give him credit for his role in this movie. My personal opinion he is the one reason to watch this movie and most likely the reason anybody showed up at the cineplex.

But let's stop fooling ourselves the only reason to watch this movie nowadays would have to be Gomez Adams himself, John Astin. Sadly Astin will go on and star in the next two of the series. And again be the only reason worth checking in for. Astin is fun and giddy like a little schoolboy who has a great time playing jokes on his classmates.  Astin picks up this movie in loving arms and carries it on his back the whole way.

So what you really want to know is Return of the Killer Tomatoes worth watching? Well, the answer is not so simple if you like B movie spoof's that dive right in! If you want to see George fresh off of Facts of Life then yes, he is a lot of fun to watch. But in the long run, it falls a little flat and if you are not familiar with the first one some of the jokes just won't fit. And John is wild making it worth the trip if you are willing to check this out.

3 Bloody Brains out of 5

Better yet follow this link to an episode of the cartoon.

Return of the Killer Tomatoes was apart of the Blogathon Food in Movies make sure to check them out ton fo cool stories out there.