BEEFSTEAK MADNESS

Back in 1978, San Diego was overrun by malicious veggies in “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” an ultra-low-budget ($150,000) horror directed by John DeBello. (Yeah, we know, tomatoes are actually a fruit, technically a berry). Tired of “eight years worth of tomato jokes,” DeBello, who’s got a million bucks to work with this time, is currently directing “The Return of the Killer Tomatoes.”

“We had been approached a number of times about doing a sequel,” DeBello told us from the set. “ ‘Killer Tomatoes’ has been dubbed into German, Spanish and other languages and has done well on videocassette.” He claims a $10-million worldwide gross.

Four Square, his production company, has stayed busy in the interim doing commercials and recruitment films for university athletic departments. (There was a feature, the DeBello-directed “Happy Hour” with Rich Little and Jamie Farr, that quickly perished at the box office last spring.)

This new one, due out early next year, will have John Astin as Prof. Gangrene, planning a world takeover by turning tomatoes into humans. “There will be literally hundreds of tomatoes,” promises DeBello, “though they won’t be in as many scenes.”

One will become a curvaceous, beautiful woman. Or, as DeBello promises, “a real tomato.”