Beginning of the End

Plots: Enterprising journalist Audrey Ames (Peggie Castle) is determined to get the scoop on enormous grasshoppers that were accidentally created at the Illinois State experimental farm, and she endeavors to save Chicago despite a military cover-up. A reporter, a military officer, and a scientist discover that the complete destruction of a small town was caused by giant grasshoppers that were accidentally enlarged by the scientist experimenting with radioactive material at a nearby agricultural research project. Reporter Audrey Ames is driving along a highway in Illinois when she is stopped by the military, and she learns that a small town was destroyed and everyone has seemingly disappeared. She goes to a lab run by the Department of Agriculture. While she is there she meets the lab’s director, Dr. Ed Wainwright who tells her that strange things have been happening ever since he discovered that a bunch of grasshoppers managed to get into a silo containing a batch of radioactive wheat. They soon discover that the grasshoppers have grown to monstrous proportions, and not only are they devouring the local vegetation, but they have developed a taste for human flesh as well. Now the locusts are marching towards Chicago and the military is threatening to destroy the city with the atom bomb. Can another solution to stop the monsters be found before it is too late?