
In a dark and nasty textile factory close to a cemetery and infested of rats, many workers are missing. When the corrupt manager Warwick is forced by a sanitary agent to hire the exterminator Tucker Cleveland, he asks Tucker to use less poison than necessary to reduce the costs. Meanwhile, the drifter John Hall applies for a job and accepts the position of operator of a textile machine in the graveyard shift. What they do not know is that there is a huge creature is in the un... (Full plot summary below)
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In a dark and nasty textile factory close to a cemetery and infested of rats, many workers are missing. When the corrupt manager Warwick is forced by a sanitary agent to hire the exterminator Tucker Cleveland, he asks Tucker to use less poison than necessary to reduce the costs. Meanwhile, the drifter John Hall applies for a job and accepts the position of operator of a textile machine in the graveyard shift. What they do not know is that there is a huge creature is in the underground of the mill threatening the workers.
Leave your thoughts about Graveyard Shift.
| Orlando SentinelJoe Bob BriggsAs directed by Ralph S. Singleton, Graveyard Shift works better above ground than below. The early scenes that allow the actors a little color are more fun than the all-basement episodes, which are visually monotonous despite the fact that the film's monster plot is a multi-media affair. |
| USA TodaySusan WloszczynaGraveyard Shift is the latest failed attempt to visualize what King imagines so well. The acting and directing are substandard. Even the hackneyed plot is barely turned over. |
| Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasThis picture, which looks far, far better than it is, is so clunky that you can't be sure just how funny writer John Esposito, in adapting an early King short story, and director Ralph S. Singleton intended it to be. |
| San Francisco ChroniclePeter StackGraveyard Shift is the latest failed attempt to visualize what King imagines so well. The acting and directing are substandard. Even the hackneyed plot is barely turned over. |
| User ReviewAngryPaulGiven that the root story was only 20 pages long, they did a great job of fleshing out the characters. Macht in particular. |
| User ReviewTheQuietGamerLow-budget, B-movie schlock it may be, but darn is it pretty fun. It's depiction of the difficulties of shift-work and slimeball bosses make it a horror flick for the working class. It's ability to keep things moving and get right to the point, along with it's pretty good cast, helps the film elevate itself above it's noticeable flaws. Among which are cheap scare tactics and budgetary restraints. It's a pretty straightforward affair. You can tell director Ralph Singleton wants to show off his monster more, but just didn't have the money to make that happen. So we get some really flat moments that should have been more brutal and frightening. Some shots come off as a touch amateurish, but overall the quality of the realistic horrors the characters have to put up with from their boss and working conditions mostly make up for it. Stephen Macht is perfect as the mill's scumbag foreman. The rats and grime are all used well to sell the setting. It suitably dark, dirty, and gross. When the mill's basement-dwelling beast is able to come out into the light a bit, it's a reminder of how much more effective and interesting practical effects can be in comparison to CGI, even if things do look a little cheap. Kind of a dorky creature-feature that just so happens to have a little extra something to it that came from being adapted from a Stephen King story. You get some blood and guts, but what will really keep you watching is the look into the life of blue-collar workers, something the movie captures to very well. The stuff with the monster? Well, that's just a little something extra. Graveyard Shift might not ever be destined to go down as a horror classic, but there's still some fun to be had with it. 6. |
| User ReviewJLauDrifter takes a job in a mill and gets put on the night shift but there are a lot of rats who are taking an interest in what he's doing. |
| User ReviewJLuis_001The story adapted here is barely 20 pages long and it shows. This is a simplistic and cheap adaptation of something that could've been a short film and that if it had been so, it would've adapted the atmosphere of that short story in a better way. |
| User ReviewFilipeNetoA bad idea for a movie. Everything happens in an old industrial weaving set up by a creek and an abandoned cemetery, which seems to have been overrun and turned into a swamp, where graves and bodies float. In the midst of this general rot environment, a thriving rat community was born and invaded weaving. Now the owner wants the rat-free factory and the basement free to make new workspaces, but something terrible is killing employees at night. Inspired by a short Stephen King tale, it is a film with little to see and little story to tell besides scaring no one. A new employee, stupid co-workers, the usual cliché of the hot secretary who has an affair with the boss, who is an idiot and who knows more than he looks, caring little about the employees. And after all, the terrible and giant monster is a kind of cross between a rat and a bat, which never comes up entirely and is clearly fake, in one of the worst-made special effects I've ever seen since the Spielberg shark. Is there anything good in this movie? More or less. The actors do a decent job, David Andrews works even harder than the material deserves, I think. He was good enough, and so can Stephen Macht, who was cynical and cruel enough to deserve our hatred. But that's all. Kelly Wolf and Ilona Margolis limit themselves to being handsome faces and beautiful bodies to suffer or be in danger. Brad Dourif is ridiculous. Vic Polizos is stupid and Jimmy Woodard is histrionic. In short, it is an unwritten and very poor horror movie, where everything is based on the environment and gore. It doesn't scare us, it almost makes us laugh at certain times. |