Good movie but grossly overrated

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's not just the enormous rat infestation or the monster lurking in the bowels of the run-down Bachman Mills that are ominous. The 1990 Gates Falls, Maine cotton processing plant is more like one from 1900 with its utterly hazardous cotton picker machinery with exposed drive belts, gears, nip points, moving parts, and point-of-operation exposures. Safety and warning signs are routinely ignored while safe work practices are flouted. Housekeeping is at a poor level; fire hazards are everywhere. Moreover, the mill constantly pollutes the local river. Then there is the rather sadistic foreman that workers have to contend with. Although there is supposed to be a union that ostensibly protects workers, it accomplishes nothing. When the US Dept. of Labor (OSHA) inspector is paid off after he notes some (not all!) of the violations, he tells the foreman that he will be back. At least he thinks that the plant should be closed.Because temperatures are high in the summer heat – even in Maine – the main factory is run only at night (11:00 pm-7:00am), the Graveyard Shift. At film's beginning, Jason Reed (Jonathan Emerson), who works very unsafely in the basement, thinks nothing of throwing live rats into the picker unit. The rat's blood and body parts squirt into the cotton fabric but Reed does not care. Suddenly he screams: something has grabbed and taken him away for good. As he has disappeared, there is a new position available. At the same time, the vermin infestation has resulted in the contact of the typically unbalanced vermin exterminator, Tucker Cleveland (Brad Dourif), and the aforementioned OSHA inspector. Enter new employee John Hall (David Andrews), a drifter from Wheeling, West Virginia, who replaces Reed on the cotton picker. Before long he will get chummy with Kelly Wolf (Jane Wisconsky); they enjoy each other's company and smoke Marlboro cigarettes. Hall's weapon against rats is his slingshot and Pepsi soda cans. John and Kelly's ultimate nemesis is Warwick (Stephen Mach), the foreman who in reality acts as a plant manager. Warwick hankers over Kelly, but she cannot stand him. As the mandatory Fourth of July holiday week approaches for plant closing (backed by the union!), Hall agrees, for double pay, to work with the subsequent skeleton cleanup crew. That crew includes Kelly but also several despicable factory hands, like Brogan (Vic Polizos), who doesn't seem to know that horseplay at work is dangerous. During the cleanup Hall discovers a trap door on the basement floor: a secret sub-basement. It is spooky and eventually leads to a cemetery. Is that where the rats are breeding? Is that the lair of the bat-monster? Will the crew be picked off one by one? This low-budgeted film has a gritty edge that captures the right atmosphere of sweat and fetor that the viewer can almost feel. It would be nice if it explained the origin of the monster and also Warwick's motivation. Some parts just do not translate well, like the Beach Boys' song "Surfin' Safari" while rats float and struggle on debris in the flowing water. 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.

Heh, man, I actually saw this in the theater when it came out, if you can believe that. And, in all honesty, I think I do remember feeling at the time that I wasn't overly impressed. 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'm not talking about the amazing Classic ones like 'THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION' which is likely one the GREATEST films ever made, or the other Classics like 'THE SHINING' or even 'SALEM'S LOT', but I'm talking about the run-of-the-mill other ones. Normally I find quite a few of them very overdone, plastic, and not terribly engaging. But, this one I felt was actually done fairly well for the type of film that it is.Remember, this is just your basic Monster movie, BUT with a really nice Gothic look and feel. 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. That is one point in which I feel that many of King's adaptations do NOT do well. In my lowly and wretched opinion, in most cases the characters come across as 2 dimensional, empty, stereotypes that are completely unbelievable. 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. BUT... and it is a BIG BUT like Mariah Carey's... 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 speaks a lot about director Ralph Singleton's ability to make a great splatsticks and cheesy flicks. Perhaps this is as gory and bizarre as the novel itself. I believe Stephen King has a guardian angel that is always atop his head, inspiring him bring out the most unusual horrific thoughts. As far as the budget is concerned, GS is mediocre but the way this tale has been presented makes this film bit outlandish. The plot is simple, but the cause is freaky. The cinematography is great and gives a strange sullen atmosphere to the movie. The film has enough offering for the gore-hounds, who would love this flick for splatter reasons. The plot would have worked well even if it were incorporated in any of anthologies like 'Tales from the Darkside aka Creepshow 3.A run down textile mill is restarted by a firm. The owners appoint a grouchy and malevolent supervisor Warwick (Macht) to make new recruitment and keep the production on the go. The exterminators, specially Brad Douriff discovers that the mill is infested with rats. The population of the rodents is so high, that they have dug big holes in the mill premises. We soon watch John Hall (David Andrews) taking role of a night shift worker. Others are astonished to see John take the night shift. The shift has a notorious past, because it took the life of old workers. We also come to know that the deaths have something to do with rats. Andrews soon assumes his responsibility and is time and again bugged by the presence of rats. He manages to fend some of them with an empty cola can and sling. John is bullied by his fellows Danson (Divoff) and Brogan (Polizos), but he wants to keep his profile low. John also shares some pleasant intimacy with his co-worker Jane (Kelly Wolf), which is despised by Warwick. Time goes by and other incidents of disappearances take place. Searching for the clue, the exterminator Douriff scans the nearby graveyard and discovers a tunnel. Before he could track the channels, he is crushed under a tombstone. Warwick compels the workers to participate in the extermination program. Unfortunately, the team stumbles upon a chain of interconnected tunnels, that lead to a nearby graveyard. One by one the workers are killed by something unimaginable, that rests and breeds inside this tunnel waiting for the good time. However, John still has his time for the final showdown.The film succeeds in taking the viewers to discomfort. Unlike any other ambiguous horror farce that is trashed out in the name of horror, this doesn't lose grip. A newbie to horror may take it for a slow starter and soon start pigeonholing this gem of a film with other inferior squibs. This film has a strange atmosphere, that gets tedious and intolerable due to the presence of rats. Well, consider yourself working past midnight at a mill with no ventilation, heavily enervated and badly perspiring. Then to add to your troubles, you are alone, and furthermore you are surrounded by several hundred rodents, that are smelly and also HUNGRY! How do you think you'll react to this? Well watch GS to believe it. Cheers to Ralph Singleton!

Stephen King's Graveyard Shift is a gritty and messy little film about rats and yarn mills. The story is about a group of workers who are instructed by their boss to clean out the rat infested basement of the mill they work at. Meanwhile, a few other people have been murdered by a mysterious creature roaming the workplace. Also there is a hoard of rats down there which love to lick up human blood. So as soon as the cleaning crew start their work, they get attacked by the huge creature and many of them die. The creature's death at the end is done well, but it doesn't make up for the boring movie.Now, I still don't know what the hell the huge creature is at the end. It's supposed to be a giant rat (I think) but it looks like a bat. Maybe it's a mutation, who knows? It does look gruesome though. The death scenes involve lots of gruesome gore as well. The problem with this film, which was originally a short story, is that it goes on and on too long. It's very dull and just plain boring at times. And I have to say watching this film, I wonder if the actors were told not to shower at all during the making of it. They all looked so dirty and nasty. The grittiness of the movie is at an extreme.And all of the characters are plain scum. As viewers you root for them to die in a way just so they'll shut up. Like the guy down in the basement killing rats with a water hose. Did he have to scream every time he pumped out the water? That scene went on for a good three minutes. I couldn't wait for him to be off my screen. This is one of Stephen's King's worst adaptions. Children the Corn is often frowned upon when King's films are mentioned, but this is far worse.3/10