Beginning of the End Reviews

Bert Gordon went on from this turkey to make some bigger and worse movies such as EMPIRE OF THE ANTS; FOOD OF THE GODS; THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN; CYCLOPS, and several others. You've seen this plot a thousand times, but here it is again: Several people die near a government testing station. Radioactive material has caused fruits and vegetables to grow to enormous proportions. Now . . . can you guess which creatures get a dose of the radioactive stuff and become huge? In FOOD OF THE GODS, wasps and worms and chickens and rats become Cadillac-sized. In EMPIRE OF THE ANTS it is, of course, those knuckleheaded picnic pests that get bigger and bigger. In this movie, it's grasshoppers! In an American version of the typical Japanese Godzilla film, the grasshoppers attack Chicago, tear up the Loop, and are finally killed when it is learned that they cannot stand the waters of Lake Michigan. This is a ludicrous, cliche-filled movie. Graves (James Arness' brother) and Benedict, who went on to be a very successful TV director, do good work, as does that old war-horse, Watkin, who began his career in 1935 and should have known better than to take a job in a movie as flawed as BEGINNING OF THE END.