William Samuel I've heard it said that if you've seen one giant monster or nature run amuk movie, you've seen them all. I'm not sure about that, but I do feel safe in saying that if you've seen one Bert I Gordon movie, you've seen them all. "Who's that?" you say. Bert I Gordon, aka Mr. B.I.G., was a somewhat prolific B-movie director from the fifties through the seventies, rather in the same vein as Roger Corman.But while Mr. Corman worked mainly for American International Pictures, and directed all manner of low-budget offerings, Gordon worked for whatever studio would hire him, and had a more specialized niche: movies about giant creatures. He did endless variations on this theme; giant ants in Empire of the Ants, prehistoric beasts in King Dinosaur, giant rats and wasps in Food of the Gods, out of control teenage giants in Village of the Giants, and giant locusts in this film, Beginning of the End.Another difference between Corman and Gordon was their production values. Corman usually had low budgets to work with, necessitating the use of flimsy models, cheap monster suits, second rate production facilities, and a fair amount of stock footage. The budgets of Gordon's films on the other hand were virtually nonexistent, forcing him to rely on improvised sound stages in offices or vacant warehouses, practically endless stock footage, and severe overuse of rear projection shots. This is where you place the actors in front of a screen, onto which you project the giant monsters they're supposed to be fighting or running from.I've already mentioned that this movie is about giant locusts. These locusts became giant because they ate giant vegetables that were created using radioactive isotopes as part of a Department of Agriculture experiment run by Peter Graves. Now based on his later work in movies like Airplane! I still believe him to be a decent actor who got a bad rap. But I admit that seeing the number of Z-grade movies like this that he's appeared in, it's pretty easy to see how he acquired that reputation. But I digress. As a side effect of their rapid growth, the locusts have become ravenous, and carnivorous. And so, after destroying a small town and eating Graves's lab assistant, they attack Chicago and do battle with the United States army.As befitting the nonexistent budget, the special effects are equally nonexistent. The small town destroyed before the start of the movie looks suspiciously like newsreel footage of a tornado's aftermath. And in every scene with the locusts, it's painfully obvious that they're just regular grasshoppers who have been shoddily edited into footage of the actors. Much of the film consists of grasshoppers wandering through battle footage from previous war movies and newsreels. If you look closely you can actually see them walking through the tanks and guns. The handful of extras in soldier's uniforms do their part, firing into the air and backing away in terror, but when their eaten, it's always just off-screen.And for the ultimate in cinematic penny-pinching, look no further than the scenes of locusts climbing Chicago's most famous buildings. Anyone with good eyesight will quickly realize that what the locusts are climbing is actually postcards of famous Chicago buildings. At one point a grasshopper even walks off into thin air- and they still put the shot in the movie. These people weren't even trying. And then there's the rather anti-climactic climax, in which the locusts are lured into Lake Michigan and drown. It's just footage of grasshoppers swarming across stock footage of Grant Park, and then a close up of dead grasshoppers bobbing around in water.The only thing that saves this movie from complete awfulness is the bad laughs generated whenever the locusts appear on screen. Even this would probably have gotten old after a while if I hadn't been watching the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version. If there was ever a movie that was meant to be mocked, this is it. I would highly recommend MST3K episode to fans of the series or anyone looking for some laughs. As for the original, I can only recommend it for curing insomnia. Trust me; you'll be out cold from boredom long before the first locust appears.

gavin6942 Audrey Ames (Peggie Castle), an enterprising journalist, tries to get the scoop on giant grasshoppers accidentally created at the Illinois State experimental farm. She endeavors to save Chicago, despite a military cover-up.Whether or not you will enjoy this film comes down to whether or not you are ready for good, cheap fun. Yes, the effects are not that amazing and in some cases are incredibly fake. The acting is nothing special, and there are some scenes that are most likely stock footage. But this is a fun, popcorn-eating film! Director Bert Gordon (a Wisconsin native) had his special niche, and he deserves more credit than he usually gets. Maybe some day we will see a nice box set of his work...

bensonmum2 Bert I. Gordon really missed with this one. For a movie that features a band of giant, mutant grasshoppers terrorizing the Midwest, Beginning of the End is very dull. So dull in fact that I had to wake myself three or four times, reverse the movie, and start over again. With droopy eyes, I finally finished the 76 minute movie in 2.5 hours.It's disappointing really because I've really come to enjoy B.I.G.'s low-budget brand of movie-making. Even when his movies aren't very good in the traditional sense, they're still usually good for a laugh or two. Not here. Likewise, I've come to really enjoy the giant bug movies of the 50s. Whether it's an ant, a spider, or a mantis, these movies are a fun watch. I wish B.I.G. could have done the same with grasshoppers.

mstomaso Thank you Bert I Gordon for making films which nobody else (except maybe Roger Corman) would dare to make, and for making them so definitively that no one would ever dare to remake them.The Beginning of the End actually has a promising beginning. It follows Audrey Aimes (Castle) a young woman reporter who runs into a military roadblock and begins snooping around by introducing herself to the operation's CO, who happens to have read some of her wartime coverage and is willing to cooperate to a point. Weird and inexplicable happenings have been reported in a nearby town (site of the roadblock). In fact, we discover, the entire town has been wiped out. When Audrey finally gets to briefly tour the site, we are shown some footage of tornado devastation which is supposed to be the result. Then she meets Peter Graves (playing Peter Graves playing an entomologist working with radioactive plants). there is a decent enough amount of back-story, and the characters are all likable and interesting, but then theatrical disaster strikes - in the form of a totally ludicrous plot.Two words - giant grasshoppers. And they are split-screened (poorly) into stock footage or scraps from some heavily edited war movie. I .... just can't go ... on.As the absurdities continue to unfold, you will be impressed by the absolute seriousness with which the cast portrays their characters, and positively blown away by the enormously long cinematographic (un)dramatic pauses as we watch hordes of soldiers marching by in different directions with nothing going on around them, giant out-of-focus grasshoppers climbing up postcards of skyscrapers and sometimes slipping on the glossy surface, and 1-2 minute-long fixed frame shots of cars approaching from miles away. I love giant monster movies, but this is definitely not one of the better ones. Still, it's harmless, more intelligent than the average sex comedy and more relevant than the usual political campaign.