32 Days of Halloween VI, Movie Night No. 15: Beginning of the End

There’s a special warm place in my heart for the Atomic Monsters subgenre. I don’t care if it’s giant insects, giant animals or giant no-effing-clue-what-it-is. If it’s wonky stop motion or let’s film a regular sized animal and splice it in so it looks huuuuge–all the better. And thus, Night #15 of 32 Days of Halloween takes a fond look back at this mayhem. And this time we’re going with 1957’s Beginning of the End which pits Peter Graves against giant grasshoppers. This under the direction of Bert Gordon, which started him down a path that would bring you Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants. And would also bring you a goodly number of MST3K episodes. And would, I guess, make him the grandfather of SyFy Originals. (Can you imagine if Gordon could be around to direct SyFy Originals? Holy crap, they would be amazing.)

Listen for Paul Frees making an uncredited appearance as one of the voices. By law, I think most films of the time had to use him.

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The film is available on DVD and you can get the MST3K-enhanced version on DVD used for just a few bucks.

Other choices for atomic night have been Battle of the Worlds (admittedly not atomic themed but it was our first year, so, you know), Horror of Party Beach, Creature With the Atom Brain, The Atomic Brain and Attack of the Crab Monsters!

Image: Wrong Side of the Art.