Field Guide to Invertebrates in Film: Beginning of the End

Beginning of the End (1957)
Critter: Gigantic mutant grasshoppers in the Family Acrididae
Size: Bus-sized
Modus Operandi: Chomping with razor sharp mandibles
How the Menace Emerges: A USDA agricultural research project investigating enlarging vegetables to feed the world goes awry when grasshoppers sneak in for a munch
End Goal: Dinner

Beginning of the End is the aptly titled second feature from the king of the gianormous, Mr. B.I.G. (Earth vs. the Spider, Empire of the Ants). This time, an agricultural experiment using radioactive isotopes to improve crop yield goes haywire. Grasshoppers that fed upon the gigantic tomatoes and strawberries respond very well to the radiation in their snack and grow to enormous size. They consume an entire town in southern Illinois before heading off to Chicago for some real fun.

Mr. B.I.G. uses his characteristic back projection to inject the enormous fiends into the scene, and for the most part it’s pretty effective. Although grasshoppers are typically not scary when we encounter them in reality, these gigantic ones climbing up photographs of Chicago’s skyscrapers and peeking in the windows would scare the pants off most of us, no matter how herbivorous we knew them to really be. As an interesting side note: this was filmed in California, which even in 1957 had very strict importation regulations against potential agricultural pests. The 300 grasshoppers that star in Beginning of the End were brought in from Texas, where they know how to grow ‘em big. Since they could escape from the set and create a much more miniaturized, but still pesky mayhem in CA, only males were allowed to be brought into the state.

Peter Graves (Night of the Hunter, It Conquered the World) stars as the entomologist responsible for the disaster and determined to fight the military with science until all is well in the world once more. He is joined in his quest by Peggie Castle (White Orchid), who starts out as an independent, star journalist after a scoop, but winds up a meek girlfriend-type by the end. Despite her character flaws, Beginning of the End is punchy and rolls right along. While nothing close to Them! caliber, it would make a fine Saturday afternoon pastime for you B-movie folks.

Nit-picking Science: Dr. Wainwright, I think you’re exaggerating the communication & social capacity of these guys. Rather than working together to devour everything as a team, these guys are usually solitary. When they get too cramped, little hairs on their legs get rubbed, and they go nuts, undergoing a Jekyll and Hyde-style transformation that turns them into an army of destruction. Just as a side note, serotonin has been experimentally implicated as the possible neurotransmitter responsible for this change.

Field Guide to Invertebrates in Film: Empire of the Ants

Empire of the Ants (1977)
Critter: Multiple members of the family Formicidae
Size: Many variations of huge
Modus Operandi: Gnashing mandible attacks that gorily kill, or sinister coercion for nefarious purposes
How the Menace Emerges: Nuclear waste dumped at sea washes ashore and mutates normal ants into gigantic freak ants!
End Goal: World domination through mind control! Oh, and all of the sugar they can get too.

I’m always a sucker for a bug-horror flick that kicks things off with a doom-saying narrator talking of the wonders and horrors of the insect world. The opener for Empire of the Ants is a classic example of this little joy of mine. Mr. B.I.G. is at it again, this time with a so-called adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1905 story retooled for a modern age. Rather than the ants staying normal-sized and taking over humankind by sheer force, Empire of the Ants opts for a more insidious sort of takeover that will knock your socks off. Since Mr. B.I.G. is at the helm, we know the ants can’t stay the small, insignificant little guys Wells employed.

It’s 20 years down the road from Earth vs. the Spider, and Mr. B.I.G. has learned that on screen attacks make us much happier. In Empire of the Ants, we get models attacking folks combined with back projection ants. We even get up-close gore shots! It seems that Mr. B.I.G. finally got the hang of it after all of these years.

Empire of the Ants stars Joan Collins (Tales from the Crypt) in another of her fabulously bitchy horror roles, this time as a swindling real estate agent trying to bamboozle an odd group of folks into buying crappy swampland in Florida. In many ways, this is a character piece. The characters range from a sleazy, cowardly rapist to a sympathetic older woman, down on her luck and trying not to be swindled out of her last bit of hope and cash. These are stock characters from the 70s but more fleshed out and believable than most. Their personalities come in handy and add interest as the story moves from light conversation to banding together to fight giant, menacing ants and then into even weirder territory. The story of Empire of the Ants is quite a treat. I would have been happy with merely a giant ants stalking humans type story, but no, Mr. B.I.G. had more nefarious plans for his little tale.

Nit-picking Science: 1) Mr. Narrator, there aren’t quite 15,000 known species of ants. To date, there are only 12,471. 2) Hey Sheriff, you’ve been hoodwinked! That’s no queen!

Field Guide to Invertebrates in Film: Earth vs. The Spider

Earth vs. the Spider (1958)
Critter: Red-legged Tarantula, giant-sized, Family: Theraphosidae
Size: Varies, it can fit in a high-school gym, yet it is taller than a 2-story building
Modus Operandi: Screams in a silly human voice, walks around menacingly, apparently drains the juice out of human victims
How the Menace Emerges: An unsolved mystery. Why now? Who knows? Not even the townsfolk of River Falls care.
End Goal: Dinner

Earth vs. the Spider another installment in a lifetime of big critter flicks from Mr. B.I.G., Bert I. Gordon, master of 50s gigantism. In true b-movie fashion, he plugs his own flicks on the marquee in town more than once. Mr. B.I.G. and American International were known for their capacity to seize upon a current fad and churn out a low-budget response in a jiffy, and this is no exception. This was another gigantic critter flick for the teen crowd, with nothing deeper than turning a dollar at its core. Although some of the “teens” are at least 30, the acting is tolerable enough and Earth vs. the Spider rolls along well, without ever slowing to a crawl. Of course, all attacks are off-camera, but there a little gore and rear-projection solves nearly all of the budget problems. Even some of the non-spider shots are classically creepy, like the post-rampage footage of suburban destruction and a blood-spattered toddler crying in the street.

The spider is very spidery, since it’s the real deal throughout most of the film. For the most part, it’s integrated pretty well into its larger landscape, if you can overlook the size changes it goes through. There are even shadows drawn onto the ground sometimes, in a touching attempt at realism. The voice of the spider is top-notch, over the top and very human. I swear it’s saying a garbled “home” as it crawls back into its cave. Plausibility needs to be tossed out the window when walking into a giant critter attacks movie, so there’s no need to harp on the many implausible story developments. Instead, there’s a bunch of absurd twists to provide tension or a cheap gag. Earth vs. the Spider is nothing more or less than a fun romp through cheap b-movie territory. Enjoy.

Nit-picking Science: Professor Kingman, insects? Spiders aren’t insects!