Q&A: Jeff Strand on novelizing Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: “The movie is absolutely ridiculous, and thus the book is absolutely ridiculous.”

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Written By Chris Well

The Bram Stoker Award-winning novelist talks up why he adapted the 1978 movie in 2023.

The horror comedy author explains what led to him adapting the cult classic disaster parody, reveals his goals for the novelization, and tells us why he didn’t include any George Clooney jokes.

Horror comedy novelist Jeff Strand is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of more than 50 books. His latest project is the holy crap who thought this up novelization of the 1970s disaster parody movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. In our exclusive interview with Strand(!), Monster Complex finds out what led to this book, the challenges of adapting this movie, and how Strand managed to raise the level of silliness on the page.

(By the way, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is one of my favorite movies of all time. So this is a BIG DEAL.)

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UFOs! Bigfoot! Communists!

The government has swiftly dealt with many a crisis... But can it survive the diabolical ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES?

After a series of bizarre and increasingly horrific attacks from pulpy, red, seeded fruit, Mason Dixon finds himself leading a “crack” team of specialists to save the planet. But will they be quick enough to save everyone? To save you?

You can’t run! You can’t swim! There’s nowhere to hide!

THE KILLER TOMATOES ARE EVERYWHERE!

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Novelization
Jeff Strand
Encyclopocalypse Publications
Categories: TV, Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction, Horror

Find Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Novelization on Amazon

Find the original movie (and watch it FREE) on Amazon

About author Jeff Strand

Horror comedy novelist Jeff Strand is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of more than 50 books, including Demonic, Blister, Autumn Bleeds Into Winter, and Dweller. He won the Bram Stoker Award in 2022 in the long fiction category for his novella Twentieth Anniversary Screening. He was also a contributor to the two innovative books Draculas: A Novel of Terror (along with Blake Crouch, J.A. Konrath, and F. Paul Wilson) and Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories Presented by the Horror Writers Association.

Cemetery Dance magazine says, “No author working today comes close to Jeff Strand’s perfect mixture of comedy and terror.” Several of his books are in development as movies. He lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Interview with Jeff Strand about Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Novelization

Q: How did this project even start? Who was the one who pitched the idea of a novelization of this movie? 

“I did a Tweet asking how it was possible that nobody had hired me to write a novelization of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. It was meant to be amusing, not a legitimate solicitation of work, but Encyclopocalypse Publications e-mailed me to ask if I seriously wanted to do this. I said ‘Absolutely,’ and they got the rights!”

Q: How did YOU become the author doing this? 

“I just answered that, thus ruining the illusion that we’re sitting across from each other conducting this interview in real time, rather than you having sent me a list of questions all at once. I’d like to think that if somebody else had decided that the world needs an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes novelization, I would’ve been at the top of their list of authors to approach.” 

Q: Have you been a fan of Killer Tomatoes over the years? How did this movie become part of your life? 

“I saw it in high school, when it wasn’t a new movie but was a hell of a lot newer than it is now. I love wacky comedy, everything from The Marx Brothers to Monty Python to the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movies, so it was exactly the kind of thing I enjoyed watching.

“These days, thanks to streaming, I have an unlimited selection of entertainment options available and don’t re-watch things very often, but back in the olden days I’d pop in the Tomatoes VHS or DVD every once in a while and laugh, laugh, laugh. (I, of course, bought the deluxe DVD as soon as it came out.)” 

Q: What are the pros and cons of adapting something like this?

“The biggest pro is that the movie is absolutely ridiculous, and thus the book is absolutely ridiculous. I could be as meta and silly as I wanted. It follows the scene-by-scene structure of the movie reasonably closely (until it doesn’t!!!) but I didn’t just want to recycle the same jokes that people already know, so it’s all new comedy unless I used their gag (like the legendary “Pass the ketchup”) as a springboard to something else. It was a fun book to write, and hopefully a fun book to read. 

“The only con, I suppose, is that I might discover that the world didn’t really want a novelization of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. There certainly were no disagreements with the filmmakers. They simply asked that I keep the book as family-friendly as the movie, and let me do my thing.”

Q: As much as I love the original movie, I’ve never been able to get into the sequels or spinoffs. What do you think of those projects? (Should I try any of them again?)

“I haven’t seen the Saturday morning cartoon series, but I have seen all of the movies. Return of the Killer Tomatoes definitely deserves another look—it’s probably the best of the quartet.

“At one point I toyed with incorporating elements from the entire epic Killer Tomatoes saga, but then I decided that if this book did really well and somebody else wanted to write books based on the sequels, I didn’t want to step on their toes. So no George Clooney jokes.”

Q: Is your new Killer Tomatoes book just a novelty project? How does this book affect you as an author? Is this for your current readers, or do you think it will attract new readers to your own books?

“I don’t expect my career to suddenly take a hard left turn into writing movie adaptations, but I’m certainly up for doing it again! I brought my A-game to this; I mean, it’s clearly not a book filled with deep characterization, but I tried to make it laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end.

“I wrote this book for fans of the movie, who now get to experience the tale of the Killer Tomatoes in a completely new way. It would be great if those fans read the book and say, ‘Gosh, I was so very entertained that I feel that I must seek out Jeff Strand’s other work!’”  

Q: On the other hand, what are the chances that you—a Bram Stoker Award-winning author with lots of books—might actually be using this novelization to bring new people in to finally watch the movie?

“I’m a very small piece of the Killer Tomatoes puzzle. It would be cool to think that I’m introducing the movie to a new generation of viewers, but Attack of the Killer Tomatoes has been doing just fine without me. I have been saying that the best way to experience the book is to have recently watched the movie, so maybe I’ll be responsible for a bunch of people re-watching this cinematic classic!”

Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/
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