CHICAGO — Long before "Candyman" or "Child's Play," there was the "Beginning of the End."
The Chicago-set 1957 horror flick is the campy black-and-white film we need this Halloween. Directed by Bert I. Gordon and starring Peter Graves, the movie's about a Midwestern science experiment gone wrong, resulting in giant grasshoppers who head Downtown to satisfy their newfound taste for human flesh.
Experts agree the movie is terrible. "Beginning of the End" has a 3.4 (out of 10) rating on IMDB and a 20 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
But Chicagoans might find charms in the movie, which shows off the Loop in its mid-century infancy as giant insects clumsily wreak their havoc. The Reader two years ago named "Beginning of the End" the fourth-best horror film set in Chicago.
"The Prudential Building scene is a true hallmark of destructive Chicago city sequences, rivaling even Michael Bay's treatment in his 'Transformers' film," the alt-weekly wrote then.
If you have 1½ hours, here's the movie in full as rightfully roasted by "Mystery Science Theater 3000." There are some good Chicago scenes starting around the one-hour mark.
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