517-Beginning of the End

Film Year:  1957
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Bert I. Gordon
Starring:  Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, Morris Ankrum
MST Season:  5

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

According to the Book of Exodus, the eighth plague set upon Egypt by God was of locusts.  If God thought ahead, they would have been atomic and Godzilla sized!  Luckily Bert I. Gordon is around to correct that wrong.

Obviously Them! was one of the most popular monster movies of the 1950’s.  It was only a matter of time before the imitators sprung up.  Beginning of the End most likely wouldn’t exist if Them! didn’t, one-upping giant ants with giant insects of biblical lore, and done much cheaper to boot.  Beginning of the End stars Peter Graves as a scientist who has developed a radioactive super-vegetable garden that is invaded by normal bugs.  As a result these locusts and grasshoppers grow to monster size and begin devouring entire cities.

The effects of Beginning of the End are done with actual insects, much like Gordon’s own Earth vs. the Spider was made with an actual arachnid.  While the superimposed insects hold up much worse than the giant ant props of Them!, due to portions of the bugs becoming transparent at certain points.  But these effects somehow make the film a bit more endearing that it might have been otherwise.  The actual insects are fun to watch and are honestly kind of cute, which does hamper the fact that the movie is trying to sell them as downright terrifying, but oh well.

But on the downside is that during the “war” scenes we can clearly tell that some of these locusts are on fire and getting hurt.  If you’re from PETA and desperately looking for a credit that assures that “No locusts were harmed during the making of this movie,” you won’t find it.  LOCUSTS ARE PEOPLE TOO!

Beginning of the End isn’t Bert I. Gordon’s best feature on the series (that would be Amazing Colossal Man), nor is it the worst (arguably that’s Village of the Giants), but it’s arguably the most perfectly balanced one for the MST format.  It’s not great, but not painful to watch.  It’s cheesy in all the right ways and is a bit of an easy target.  B-movie lovers will no doubt love this one.

The Episode

I make the argument that Beginning of the End is Bert I. Gordon’s most suitable movie for the series, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the show will hit a home run with it.  The show has failed to score with movies just as suitable before.  Luckily they see Beginning of the End for exactly what it is and they play along with it, upping the fun factor of the movie and delivering an episode that is just an all-around blast to watch.  The locusts/grasshoppers of the piece are taken aim at and given plentiful riffs involving their silly-looking superimposed movements all the way to creating individual characters for them.  All this and of course a reference to Jiminy Cricket.  The self-seriousness of the actors is also taken aim at, because movies like this are always made more hilarious when the actors are stone-faced.  They especially have fun with Peter Graves’ mute assistant, which leads to one of my favorite riffs of the entire series:  “He’s signing ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!’”

Host segments are rocky, but mostly good.  I love the opening with the wrong number phone call on the Hexfield, because I’ve actually had phone calls like that (I especially relate to trying to point out the wrong number and their insistence that it’s the correct one).  The call to the Mads is fun too, as well as the post-card special effects demonstration.  The remaining host segments involve trying to squeeze laughter out of the lame.  The Peter Graves sketch does this well, while the Tom Servo stand up drowns.  Invention exchange involves The Re-Comfy Bike and newly created playing cards, the latter of which is cute but really pushing it as an “invention.”  You can certainly tell this regular segment was on its way out the door.

Beginning of the End is the apex of Bert I. Gordon’s tenure of films on the show.  Wonderful riffing enhancing the flavor of delicious cheese, I daresay that it would have been perfect had the episode had better host segments.  But those are small pimples on a radiant beauty.

Classic

The DVD

This episode was released individually by Rhino, with pretty good audio and slightly flawed video, but not appallingly so.  The unriffed film is included as a bonus feature, which is pretty fun to watch on its own.  Unfortunately the print is in really poor condition, far worse than the one seen on the series.  Audio is coherent.  Also included are advertisement clips from other Rhino released episodes and a preview for a Rhino CD collection of sci-fi themes and music called Brain in a Box.

Shout Factory re-released the episode by itself exclusively through their website.  There were no special features.