Beginning of the End

Oh come on, it's not that bad. Granted, it's not very good but the idea that downtown Chicago is being terrorised by a swarm of gigantic locusts is quite entertaining. It all starts off when photo-journalist "Audrey" (Peggie Castle) stumbles upon an army roadblock near the remote town of Ludlow (no, not the one where Henry VIII's big brother died). The army cordon around the place doesn't prove to be much of a barrier as she convinces the soldiers to let her explore the mysterious site. What has happened and could have caused this? Well the only possible explanation might emanate from a nearby government installation where they are experiment with great big tomatoes! There, "Ed" (Peter Graves) and she are watering the plants when they are attacked by this enormously menacing grasshopper. Lucky to escape with their lives, they now have to convince a sceptical general (Morris Ankrum) that the city is in desparate peril and that these fire and bullet-proof critters - who luckily cannot fly - are going to have to be eradicated, though preferably not by dropping an Atom bomb on the Drayton Hotel. Graves was always quite competent in these low-budget creature-features, as was Ankrum who always seems to play the top brass - but Castle. Yikes, but she is having a shocker right from the start, and she doesn't get any better as you do sort of hope the bugs do us a bit of a favour and gobble up "Audrey" before the predictable and really quite disappointingly rushed conclusion. I especially liked the scenes towards the end where some skyscraper wallpaper was put to really good use by some magnetic or rubber insects that went on to starring roles in "Dr. Who" and I reckon this might have been quite enjoyable at 1950s drive-ins. Taken in that spirit, it's actually quite good fun.