Beginning of the End: Bert I. Gordon

Let me tell you, I have seen some awful giant monster movies in my day, but few are as hilariously inept and incompetent as Bert I. Gordon's Beginning of the End. This film is the physical embodiment of Frank Zappa's concept of "cheepnis." The film, which tells the story of a swarm of super-sized locusts accidentally created through radioactive vegetation, boasts some of the most ill-conceived special effects that I have ever encountered. There are multiple times when the illusion of giant locusts is created by having real-life grasshoppers physically placed on pictures of buildings. The film doesn't even try to hide the fact that they seem to be climbing two-dimensional buildings. These effects are particularly garish considering the fact that they were also done by Gordon, a man who was more than capable of executing halfway-decent effects shots. Every time the locusts are onscreen is a source of unintentional hilarity. At the very least it's worth pointing out that the film bothers to actually show their monsters instead of having them show up maybe once or twice in the last ten minutes like in so many of Roger Corman's monster films. But at least (most of) Roger Corman's monsters were guys in suits and not just hapless insects herded onto Polaroids.

2/10