icehole4 Review of Beginning of the End

Beginning of the End (1957)

A movie that lets it moral get in the way of good storytelling...

[2/10 · 20 April 2001]

***Note: SPOILERS.*** The Beginning of the End tries so hard to reinforce its moral - questioning whether or not we have the right to mess with nature - so much so that it gets in the way of the story. Scientists experiment with plants and cause them to grow to big size, and then crickets eat those plants, and get big as well. Cheapie '50's special effects have crickets walking off cardboard cut-outs of giant buildings (scaled down to cricket size, of course.) In the end Dr. Ed Wainright saves the day by leading the crickets into Lake Michigan, thus drowning them. Skewered on MST3K, this story is kinda shaky whether it deserved it or not. It's not in the same vein as Manos: The Hands of Fate, but then again, it's not a Gone with the Wind either.