Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

dougdoepke Hordes of mutant grasshoppers menace photographs of downtown Chicago.Now if termites had been the menace instead of garden variety grasshoppers, my rear-end might not have ached at the end. Okay, this drive-in special was never intended as Oscar bait. In fact, it hardly makes it as camp, what with all the needless travel time padding the 70-minutes. But you've got to hand it to Graves and Castle who give it their Z-movie all. Then there're those two lordly icons of 50's sci-fi together at last—Ankrum and Browne. No matter how bad the material, they always keep a straight face and stay employed. But come on producer-director Gordon, couldn't you have shown one of those awful scary grasshoppers devouring at least one guy. That way, we could at least have had an 'ick' factor. Otherwise, I kept wondering where the army kept their cans of Raid. As I recall, I was in the back of my teenage Chevy with a six-pack when I first sat through this special. On second viewing, I should have gotten a twelve-pack.

ctomvelu1 The film that helped usher in Hollywood's giant bug craze, this isn't half-bad. Special effects are pathetic even for the time, but the story is gripping enough and the acting first-rate. Peter Graves plays a scientist working on food growth via radiation. Grasshoppers get at these plants and grow to the size of a bus. They find humans much tastier than their usual fare. They invade Chicago after tearing up the countryside, and it's a race to the finish to see whether anything can be done to stop them before the Army nukes Chicago. Morris "Colonel Fielding" Ankrum is a grumpy general, and Peggie Castle is a reporter investigating the story. Lots of fun. We never see the monsters actually come into contact with any of the humans they devour, but the closeup facial shots of various actors about to be eaten are priceless.

Paul Andrews Beginning of the End starts as New York journalist Audrey Aimes (Peggie Castle) is driving to Illinois in Chigago, on her way she notices an army roadblock & discovers the small town of Ludlow is sealed off. No-one goes in, her journalistic instinct's peaked Audrey tries to find out what is going on but find the army unhelpful & vague but is eventually told that the entire town of Ludlow has been reduced to rubble & the one hundred & fifty people who lived there are missing. Audrey suspects that radiation might have something to do with it & one of her contacts tells Audrey that the Department of National Acriculture is conducting experiments using radiation & Audrey decides to investigate, Audrey meets head scientist Dr. Ed Wainwright (Peter Graves) who has managed to grow extra large vegetable's using radiation but the two soon discover that a swarm of Locusts ate the experimental vegetable's & have also grown to a huge size. Now the giant Locust's move across the state destroying everything in their path, Dr. Wainwright tries to think of a way to stop them before they take over the world & wipe out mankind...Produced & directed by Bert I. Gordon who is also credited with the special effects this giant insect film is basically a cheap rip-off of the classic Them! (1954) but substitutes giant killer radiation mutated Ants for giant killer radiation mutated Locust's & it's about as good as it sounds, basically not very. The first thing I would like to ask is what's with the rather cryptic & vague title? It could refer to just about anything, couldn't it? I thought these 50's monster films were supposed to have sensationalistic & lurid titles like Robot Monster (1954), The Thing from Another World (1951), The Monster that Challenged the World (1957) & It! The Terror from Bayond Space (1958). You wouldn't guess from the title Beginning of the End that this film is about giant Locust's & quite frankly you wouldn't know it's about giant Locust's from watching the first thirty odd minutes either as that's how long it takes for one to show up & considering it only goes on for just over 70 minutes that's way too long. The script is very talky with long stretches of boring exposition as the various character's explain how the giant Locust threat is spreading across Illinois, we see very little of the giant Locust's & everything they apparently do is revealed through these scenes of various people talking. For instance we hear that they have destroyed Ludlow & are on the move towards Illinois but we never see it. All of the character's are standard fare, the scientist, the nosey reporter, the authoritative army General & a string of second rate character's who barely get a line of dialogue between them. There are better giant insect films out there, Beginning of the End is one of the poorer examples.On the few occasions that we do actually get to see the giant Locust's all of the effects shots are achieved by using real Locust's & then photographically blowing them up against the actor's to make them appear huge, to be fair the effect isn't to bad considering the age & poverty of the film although I doubt anyone will be convinced by the effects overall. A real cheap affair the sum total of the US military at the end to save the entire world is a small fishing boat & a radio! The idea that the Locust's basically all commit suicide is also hard to take seriously. The ending just feels rushed & cheap, it's like the makers didn't have any money for a big fight or final confrontation. Not scary or particularly creepy Beginning of the End has little going for it.Obviously shot on a low budget Beginning of the End was filmed in Chicago, photographed in black and white the whole production is forgettable & bland. The acting is wooden in a 50's sort of way & the woman is nothing more than window dressing & there to scream every so often.Beginning of the End is a pretty dull film that really shouldn't have been, the low budget didn't help but even at 76 minutes long this drags & is pretty boring. The lack of any significant Locust action also damages what little entertainment value it could have had.

generalz-1 May I proceed!!?? If you review the "image Entertainment"/"Peter Rogers Organization" -"Special Edition, in the "commentary format of the movie; one of the daughters, of "Bert I Gordon", states that the movie was shot in "the valley"!! Do you really care what "Leonard" thinks??? I really enjoyed the movie then, and when I view it, from time to time, I still enjoy it!! "imdb", DO YOU AGREE?? In the commentary format of the movie, i enjoyed the "quirky" sense of humor, of the commentator! In the beginning, I rebelled against "commentaries", I saw them as an "intrusion", to be avoided!! Now my attitude is completely different. I look for them!! This is a damn good!! movie!!