Graveyard Shift

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a late-shift worker in the basement floor of a textile company feeds bales of cotton into a large industrial machine. He takes a break and notices the thermometer on the wall indicates the temperature is over 100 degrees. In anger at the heat, the worker pounds his fist against a support beam and a rusty nail protruding from the beams punctures his hand. He goes to the medical cabinet and gets an anti-bacterial ointment and gauze for his wound. As rats accumulate to watch the late-shift worker, he starts to taunt them and threaten them. He tosses a rat into the large industrial machine and we watch the rat being torn to pieces and blood staining the cotton. As he continues the taunts, the rats watch on. A large shadow appears and the worker turns to a sight that scares him. He stumbles backwards into the industrial machine and is slaughtered. His remains are eaten by the rats.The next day, an exterminator (Brad Dourif) crawling onto the roof of an industrial building dragging a fire hose. He stuffs the end of the water hose down into the ventilation pipe of some indoor plumbing. Behind the building is a stream of running water. A man in the water is waiting by a pump motor for the exterminator to finish preparing the hoses. The exterminator indicates to the partner on the ground that he is ready to begin. The partner cranks the pump motor and begins pumping water into the building while sucking out water through hoses in the basement of the building, bringing with it many rats, and emptying the rats into the stream.A drifter named John Hall (David Andrews) comes into a small town looking for work. The local textile company is the largest employer in town, so he applies there. The foreman, Warwick (Stephen Macht) agrees to hire the drifter after first harassing him over being a drifter and having college experience listed on his application on the condition that John accepts minimum wage for the first 4 weeks and works the 11pm to 7am "Graveyard Shift".Warwick meets with a building inspector who threatens to condemn the building if the rat infestation isn't cleared up and the basement cleared of the massive amounts of old materials stored. Warwick pays-off the inspector $200 cash to give him some time to get the building in order before filing his report. The inspector takes the money and gives Warwick until after the 4th of July holiday weekend to clean up the building.As Warwick sends random employees down to string lights in the basement, prior to the cleaning detail, one by one they get attacked and killed by some unknown creature that lurks in the basement. Always, a tide of rats preludes the attacks. When the employees come up missing, the "Now Hiring" sign gets posted out front, but no more mention of the incident occurs.Warwick explains to some workers that the business will be shut down for the 4th of July holiday. Those workers that belong to the Union would be paid holiday pay. Those who were not Union would be laid-off for one week, unless they agreed to be part of the clean-up detail and receive double-pay for their efforts. Six workers are chosen for the clean-up detail work. John Hall is one of them.One night, John Hall finds a trap door leading down further under the building. The group of six cleaners and Warwick head down to investigate. After the stairs leading back up collapse and the seven people realize they are trapped with a monster they begin to turn on each other, trying to escape. One by one, the monster kills the group off until John Hall and Warwick remain. Warwick is consumed with trying to conceal this event and also punish John Hall for standing up to his bullying, so he tries to kill John. Warwick confronts the monster and dies during the ensuing fight. John scrambles back up to the basement of the building where the large industrial machine is. The monster attacks him there, where we see that the monster is a very large bat. The large bat gets its tail caught in the industrial machine and John turns it on. We watch the bat being dragged into and slaughtered by the machine.John sighs relief.The last scene shows that the textile mill is now "under new management."Credits roll.

Tags: cult, murder

Review:
You don't hear or read much about this movie based on a short story written by Stephen King and I think that's a shame.
It lacks all the elements that make great films great films, of course; things such as brains, coherency and any whisper of characters has been neglected in favour of monster special effects and a few nice death scenes; but seriously, that's all you want from a film like this, so to say that Graveyard Shift does it's job isn't wrong.
Acting definitely isn't a key element of Graveyard Shift, but the appearance of popular cult actor Brad Dourif will please many of this films' audience.
The story doesn't offer anything in the way of a point, and it's incoherency will annoy many - but if you go into this film with the right sort of expectations, and don't think you're about to see a horror classic, Graveyard Shift really shouldn't disappoint..
In Gates Falls,Maine,an old textile mill that has been closed down for many years is reopened.The place is dirty,run down,and overrun with huge rats.The graveyard shift is operated by a skeleton crew,just enough to keep it going.This is where we meet John Hall,a young drifter who gets hired on to work with the crew.The plant which is infested with rats also harbors something much larger,deep in it's cotton filled bowels,something that wants to come up to the surface.The crew of the graveyard shift are about to come face to face with what's underneath the factory."Graveyard Shift" is loosely based on Stephen King's short story.The film is fast-paced and entertaining and offers some gore plus a few shocks.Many people trashed this horror film,but I don't care."Graveyard Shift" is still much better than bloodless and politically correct horror garbage produced today.The cast is decent and the production design provides plenty of eerie atmosphere.Give this one a look.9 out of 10..
Real rats are all over the place too, to clean up the bodies.The gore FX are mostly top-notch, the sets are good and there's plenty of violence and action, but this pointless movie is one big, unpleasant cliché thanks to poor direction and scripting (by John Esposito, based on the Stephen King story).
Andrew 'Wishmaster' Divoff shows up as a stock character, but it's Brad Dourif who chews scenery and ends up the only memorable person as the world's most simultaneously intense and incompetent exterminator, a bug eyed little weirdo who freaks people out with extended monologues about Viet Nam when he should be perusing corridors to find whatever's lurking there.
Singleton made an decent horror movie, based on a short story by Stephen King (Cat's Eye, Creepshow, Stand by Me).
The two-thirds of "Graveyard Shift" is pretty good, but the Giant Rat-Bat(!) shows up towards the end, the feature turns silly.
If you want a bottom of the barrel Stephen King film, look no further than this travesty.Set in a cotton mill in what I guess is supposed to be Maine (one character references Castle Rock, King's well known fictional Maine town), Graveyard Shift begins with a character who likes to shoot rats with rocks being attacked by .
Into town walks John Hall (Dave Andrews) a drifter looking for work, who lands a job at the mill, under the direction of the rather unkind, and potentially unhinged, foreman, Warwick (Stephen Macht).
The bug, like in most bad films, is the script.With such a strong cast and good production values, this should have been a great film.But somehow the story bogs down at the beginning, more interested in the terrible management of an old mill than the giant monster in the basement.
The monster, which was actually quite good, doesn't even get time to breathe.Brad Dourif does his best to save the movie, playing a creepy exterminator with a Jeffery Combs style mania (if the two of them were ever in a movie, the world would explode from the awesome).But in the end this film had everything, from a giant bat to a good cast, and it still sucked..
He has a scene where he's describing how rats were used in 'Nam (not present in the short story) that's mesmerizing -- Dourif completely owns it.Stephen Macht is great with his ridiculous "Maine" accent and scene chewing.
Based on the short story of the same name from King's "Night Shift" anthology, one would think a 90-minute film would be the ideal forum to iron out the nuances of a compact literary piece.
Then again, that would require filmmakers who know how to expand the material in a creative, interesting way, and one of "Graveyard Shift"'s many problems is that the source story isn't the greatest, and John Esposito's adaptation and Ralph Singleton's direction doesn't know where to go with it.
The only thing that really gives "Graveyard Shift" any redeeming value is the often-creative set design (including an underground labyrinth that threatens to create actual atmosphere), and the not-bad (but far from great) creature FX; additionally, the small New England town does evoke King's prose with some credibilityit's too bad nobody could think of a way to put it to good use..
But, I just watched an excellent HD Print of the film and I must admit that looking at it now I really appreciated it a LOT more than I did initially.Have you actually SEEN a lot of the Stephen King adaptations...?
I also REALLY liked the soundtrack which I thought was quite effective and added a lot to the mood (LOVED the male choir!) Apparently, even though the director never directed another film, I truly felt that he did a very good job crafting not only the excellent atmosphere, look, and sound of the film, but with SO damn many 'Horror' movies today filled with atrocious 'acting', I thought he did a great job bringing out the qualities of the characters in a more realistic way.
And, even though this story had the requisite and mandatory Redneck types that flood King's work, in THIS case I think that the director had them come across in a much more believable and coherent way that didn't detract from the story like it has many times before.I guess I am kind of a sucker for this type of Old School Monster movie, ESPECIALLY when there is a strong Gothic look and atmosphere to it.
Add to that the frigg'n OUTSTANDING performance by Brad Dourif (naturally...) and the surprisingly restrained but effective one by the boss dude (I personally thought he blew away the leading guy with the quality of his performance) you end up with a pretty good, entertaining old fashioned Horror movie that I felt was a lot of fun.I probably was a TAD generous with a '7' rating, and if I was grading it compared to ALL genres of Horror films, of course it wouldn't measure up as much.
Compared within the TYPE of Horror movie that it is, I honestly felt that it was above average and merited a '7'So, I would say that as long as you DO like these older Retro Horror films, especially with a nice, moody Gothic atmosphere, and if you also like a good Creature Feature, I think that there is a good chance that you will enjoy it....
Graveyard Shift is a very good movie.I have seen the bad reviews and I tell you there wrong.Everything in  graveyard shift is excellent.The setting,the atmosphere,the people.David Andrews is great as the strange drifter.And the ending is good too.Thats what I call an ending.Based on a Stephen King story,graveyard shift picks you up from the beginning and dosent let you go till the end..
Despite the negatives, one can do far worse than watch "Graveyard Shift." A bonus is that it was filmed on location at Harmony and at Bangor, Maine; the extras are actual local mill workers..
Based on the Stephen King short story from his "Night Shift" collection, about a drifter who comes to a small New England town looking for a job, and finds one in a cotton mill run by an obnoxious foreman(played by Stephen Macht).
However, the rats are the least of the problems, as the workers who must pull an all-night shift will discover...Awful film is devoid of suspense or intelligence; despite the potential atmospheric chills of the underground setting, the direction is extremely poor, characters not developed or overacted, and result is a grimy, foul-mouthed piece of junk..
Graveyard Shift (1990) was another Stephen King short story that was stretched out to fill a ninety minute movie.
A very poor horror film based on a very good Stephen King short story (called "Night Shift").
And I like the rat/bat monster in Graveyard Shift, which isn't nearly as bad as some of the reviews here would have you believe.What I don't like about this film, however, are the people.
Drifter John Hall (David Andrews) makes for a bland hero, mill foreman Warwick (Stephen Macht) is an obnoxious bastard with a really annoying accent, Brad Dourif as The Exterminator is way too over the top (even by Brad's standards), and Andrew Divoff and Vic Polizos are terrible as Hall's co-workers Danson and Brogan, the latter almost making me switch off as he blasts rats with a high pressure hose (not because I felt for the rats, but because he screams at the top of his voice with each blast.
Still, with a decent creature (I've seen plenty worse) and a fair amount of gore, Graveyard Shift is still worth a look, especially for Stephen King fans, on whose short story the film is based.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for the so-bad-it's-brilliant end credits song that is comprised of snippets of dialogue from the film set to a cheesy backing track..
But it's easier to find flaws in a little horror film than to 'mine' it for good points as so many have failed to do.Adapting a short (very short) story from Stephen King's collection Night Shift, Ralph Singleton took a small budget, unique sets, and a remarkably gifted group of actors and spun a film called Graveyard Shift.Plot: A group of over-worked misfits in a textile mill run afoul of a strange, mutant creature and a large number of rats.
Fans of the original short story by Stephen King (from his book- NIGHT SHIFT) will immediately be struck by the massive amount of padding created to stretch things out to feature film length.
Sure Stephen King has had some bad movies made based on his work.
Beware of the Giant Rat. Graveyard Shift (1990) ** (out of 4) Silly adaptation of the Stephen King short story takes place at a textile mill where there are more rats than actual works.
The entire idea of a giant rat killing people just isn't very scary and when you're doing a horror film that can't possibly get any scary moments then you're already playing behind the eight ball.
Well, it's supposed to be.The films plods along until Andrews and a bunch of unpleasant co workers, along with Stephen Macht and his demented accent, get down to the business of trying to clear the basements up, and then there is much screaming and running.
It's difficult to say this is offensive to the source material; rather than wasting potential, the film has stretched the original story way too much; its reasonably chilling seven or eight pages were good in themselves, but hardly effective material to make an 80 minute film.That said, there are plus points from trying to place Macht's accent, and Brad Dourif's wonderful turn as "The Exterminator".
Stretching a Stephen King story about a rat-infested cotton mill in Maine to 90 minutes may have seemed like a good idea, but giving the rat infestment too much close-up coverage was not.
Stephen King`s Graveyard shift is a very different but styling film.
Graveyard Shift is one of the weakest Stephen King Adaptations but is still an entertaining Horror film that is filled with atmospheric direction,a good cast,an intense score and memorable special make-up effects.
All of those make Graveyard Shift a memorable guilty pleasure.Based on Stephen King's short story and set in Maine,Graveyard Shift tells the story of a drifter named John Hall(David Andrews)who's just arrived in Maine looking for a fresh start and a job.
Now,John and his co-workers have to worry about getting a good paycheck and survival.Stephen King despite being one of the greatest and most iconic bestselling Authors of all-time the film adaptations of his work have been a mix bag because the truth is for every great and strong Stephen King adaptations like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining(1980),Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption(1994),and Brian De Palma's Carrie there is always a weak adaptation like Graveyard Shift.
Even though it's not one of the best Stephen King films I always watch the movie when it's on television because there are some good things about it and it's entertaining and memorable.
One of the things that I like about Graveyard Shift is the film's atmosphere which is dark and mysterious giving the movie a sense of doom and dread giving you the feeling that nothing is going to be alright in the end.
Being that Graveyard Shift was based on a 15-page short story and the running time is 89 minutes GS feels too short and seems like there should have been much more in the film.
In a very old textile mill, with a serious rat infestation, the workers discover a horrifying secret deep in the basement.We have legendary character actor Brad Dourif as the exterminator and Andrew Divoff (who later became famous for "Wishmaster" and "Lost") as Danson.
But there is something in the basement that is even more vicious.I really enjoyed David Andrews as the man you most want to see in the basement alone.Brad Dourif as the exterminator made the film worth watching.But, it is not just the foreman who ends up in the basement, but the whole gang.
Of Mice and Men. An often overlooked and long forgotten Stephen King adaptation, "Graveyard Shift" tells the tale of a group of blue collar workers hired to clean the basement of a textile plant in Maine.
The studio executives no doubt wanted to make a few bucks with a by-the-numbers B-movie and chose the director based on his past experience on a number of respectable movies; no one could have predicted that he'd go balls-out crazy and treat a story about a mutant rat monster as if he'd been handed the script to "Macbeth." A drifter named John arrives in the town of Gate's Falls and applies for a job in a rat-infested textile mill run by Mr. Warwick (played by an unknown actor named Stephen Macht, whose attempted Maine accent sounds more Transylvanian), a deliriously evil man who rules not only the mill, but the entire town, with an iron fist.
Tucker Cleveland(Brad Dourif, who easily steals the film with his limited time on screen)is the exterminator of the mill who works day and night wasting those rat-vermin who wish to rear their ugly heads from the bowels.
This mill should've been closed down forever, but Warwick has a way of extending time for a 4th of July clean-up where those who decide to work for double-pay, including Hall and his love-interest Jane(Kelly Wolf), will find true horror down in the basement of the place.I have no right whatsoever recommending this hunk of pure trash to anyone, but those who enjoy rats and garbage may find it amusing.
Highlights include Dourif's exterminator explaining to Hall about an experience in Vietnam which inspired his choice of occupation where a prisoner of war is used as meat for specially trained rats(as he expresses in exact detail, Dourif gets so caught up in the intensity of the character he sheds a tear..that ought to bring a bit of respect from some that an actor of his caliber would care so much to give away part of himself to such a rotten movie), or how Hall traps the monster in the textile machine.But how Warwick goes over the edge, insanely with face paint used from grease of an old jar, as he chases after the creature has to be the ultimate highlight.I think the best audience for this type of film is those lovers of bad Creature features, because in it's own ugly way, this film can be entertaining.
Stephen King's Graveyard Shift is a gritty and messy little film about rats and yarn mills.
In this wretched adaptation of a Stephen King short story a motley bunch of imbecilic and unlikable mill workers are devoured by a large mutant bat-rat monster when they get trapped in the dank basement of a grimy textile mill.
I suggest that you read the Stephen King short story and then see a better film.
Overall opinion, this is not a bad movie, just not a good one in the least.GRAVEYARD SHIFT: 2/5..
"Graveyard Shift" is another adaptation of a Stephen King work, this time a short story.Drifter John Hall (David Andrews) wanders into a small southern town in search of a job.
The main bad guy who owns the factory runs around trying to sound like Fred Gwynne in Pet sematary, and Brad Dourif, spends his cameo just trying to look cool.Turns out there's some sort of huge rat/bat creature living in the factory, and picking off random workers who talk to themselves or treat the other rats as children.Cue John Connors girlfriends dad from Terminator 3, and you know he's a good sort because he ignores heckles and does as he's told.It's pretty bad stuff, marking off every single horror cliché from the early nineties, and the main problem is that the film isn't scary, exciting, nor is there any fruitful characters you would expect from a King story.The setting is good, but the rest is awful, and if you only take one thing away with you, it's the fact that Diet Pepsi is probably better than Coke..
This cheesy adaptation of a Stephen King short story is a bad film lover's dream come true.
Mostly an average shocker, based on a short story by Stephen King, "Graveyard Shift" does have a couple extra things going for it to make it a fairly amusing view.