YMMV / Beginning of the End

• California Doubling: There are no mountain ranges in Illinois.
• Designated Hero: Dr. Ed Wainwright, Peter Graves' character. He CREATES the monsters, but never, at any point, apologizes for it - even though he's directly responsible at the very least for the death of his deaf/mute assistant. He acknowledges it, but treats it as if he simply forgot to feed the dog (what he forgot to do was create a sealed environment for his experiments using potentially dangerous atomic isotopes). Yeah, he does spend the remainder of the film trying to stop what he created, but it's too late. Lampshaded in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode.
  Wainwright: "In a way, I feel responsible..."
  Mike: "'In a way'?!"
• Follow the Leader: Clearly inspired by Them!, the big-bug film of The '50s.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Chicago is the scene of a confrontation between the army and huge monsters. Twice!
• Nightmare Retardant: Unlike ants or spiders or most other bugs, grasshoppers really don't have much visceral horror to them.
• So Okay, It's Average: An inferior imitation of Them!, to be sure, but it's better than most MST3K movies and is even enjoyable in its own right.
• Special Effect Failure
  • The giant grasshoppers crawling up the buildings are clearly actually just regular sized grasshoppers crawling across a postcard. In at least one shot (called out by Crow) one of the grasshoppers is quite clearly walking off the edge of the building on the card.
  • Every time someone drives down that Certain Stretch Of Road (the dead giveaway would be the Rear Projection, which shows the same two cars perpetually going the opposite direction).

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