10 Gloriously Schlocky 1950s B Movies You Have To See

Beginning of the End is kind of a vague title, but presumably the studio thought it sounded better than “Attack of the Giant Freaking Grasshoppers.” Yep, this is a legitimate B-movie made in 1957 which is about giant grasshoppers going around killing people. It is exactly as goofy as you’d hope based on that description.

Part of what makes the movie so delightfully cheesy is the way the grasshopper effects are accomplished. Director Bert I. Gordon considered using animated creatures, but that was too costly, so what’d he do? He just went out and bought 200 real grasshoppers, filmed them in his garage, and then messed with the perspective to make them appear huge behind the actors. If you’re a fan of silly special effects, Beginning of the End is so much fun just to look at.

The finale is truly unbelievable. Gordon needed to film a scene of the grasshoppers climbing up skyscrapers, so he just got a bunch of photos of skyscrapers, placed the grasshoppers on them, and blew air to get them to move up. It looks so fake that at times, you can actually see the grasshoppers walk off the building and into the sky. The whole movie looks awful, but it’s awful in an incredibly endearing way.