Film: Beginning of the End (1957)
Alias: Giant grasshoppers
Type: Mutant
Location: Forest/Civilized area
Height/Weight: About as big as large trucks.
Affiliation: Neutral, leaning on evil
Summary: Before an army of hoppers led by Kevin Spacey terrorized the silver screen, an equally large grouping of crop-ravaging monsters set the standard in the city of Chicago, Illinois. The only difference was that they were big enough to eat people, they were mutants, and they didn't try to enslave a colony of puppy-eyed ants.
History: Somewhere near the mountains of Illinois (sigh, yes, we meant every word of that), an attempt to decrease starvation was underway. Scientists were creating gigantic fruits and vegetables with the power of SCIENCE!!! The only problem was that no one bothered adding a screen door anywhere, and a bunch of locusts had gotten their mandibles around the chemically-enhanced food by that point. It was all downhill from there.
Notable Kills: None actually seen. Darn. Although one guy gets his face torn up bad by one's mandibles as a result.
Final Fate: After capturing one of the beasts, the people learn that the locusts will blindly follow each other's call, so they create a fake one to lure them into Lake Michigan. It is there where they all drown in the cold water.
Powers/Abilities: Nothing much. They can't even fly like their smaller brethren. But that's gravity for you.
Weakness: Not only do the locusts hate cold temperatures, but they tend to follow each other regardless of the consequences.
Scariness Factor: 3-While the locust isn't the ugliest insect in the world, it's the most destructive, as a swarm of them can annihilate a crop field in minutes. While the giant locust can't fly, one was able to destroy a town of 150 people by itself. Make of that what you will. It doesn't help that their call is persistently unnerving.
Trivia: -The largest locust swarm was in 1875, and it was about 198,000 square miles in size. The locust responsible, the Rocky Mountain locust, is now appropriately extinct. Thank God.
-The difference between the grasshopper and the locust is that the former doesn't get into big swarms. That is, until it does. Then it's a locust.
