Graveyard shift is set in a textile mill that from the outside looks like a large house. It also has a small run down graveyard next to it that is constantly enshrouded in mist and fog, no matter how sunny and clear it is elsewhere. It's late at night, a worker is operating a machine called a 'picker'. He notices rats everywhere, the mill is infested with them. He picks one up and puts it into the machine which slices the rat up into little pieces. Then he notices a shadow, someone or something is behind him, he turns around there is a loud squealing noise, he screams and falls into the machine. Chopped up bits of his body emerge from the other side which the rats begin to nibble on. This unfortunate 'accident' means there is a job vacancy at the mill. A drifter named John Halls (David Andrews) wanders into town and sees an advert in a local diner for the position at 'Bachman Mills'. He talks to the supervisor, Mr. Warwick (Stephen Macht) and is given the job, that of operating the picker from 11pm to 7am which is dubbed the 'graveyard shift'. Shortly after starting work Warwick gives Halls a chance to earn double pay. He is assembling a clean up crew to tidy up the basement. Halls agrees, along with four other workers Charlie Carmicheal (Jimmy Woodward), Brogan (Vic Polizos), Danson (Andrew Divoff) and Warwick's ex wife Jane Wisconsky (Kelly Wolf). While cleaning up Halls discovers a trap door, they all venture down inside only to become trapped and be killed off one by one by a giant rat-bat monster!
Directed by Ralph S. Singleton this is a seriously poor, stupid and incredibly clichéd horror film. The script by John Esposito based on a short story by Stephen King is terrible. The fog enshrouded graveyard, characters who argue with each other and split up rather than help each other to survive, a stupid over-the-top exterminator (Brad Dourif) who takes his job ridiculously seriously and rambles incoherently on about past exploits and Vietnamese trained rats who becomes the 'comedy relief' plus a blossoming relationship between the two leads which becomes stronger as the film goes on because of the situation they find themselves in. Every cliché in the book is here, you can easily figure out who's going to die and who's going to survive. The scenes in between the rat-bat monster attacks are really dull and uninteresting, I just sat there waiting for the next special effects scene hoping it's not too far away. No explanation for the giant rat-bat monster is given at all, not a single reason for it being there or how it was created. It's just sort of there and that's it, we have to accept it. The acting is uniformly bad, Andrews has to be one of the most bland and uninteresting leading men ever! You can barely understand what Macht is saying because of his ridiculous accent. This film apparently cost $10,500,000! Where did all the money go? I bet the executives at Paramount had heart attacks when they saw what their money had brought! There's not even that much gore in it, a chopped off foot, a man with no hand and a couple of shots of blood splattering over walls and furniture, and that's it. No nudity either I'm afraid. The monster is never really completely seen, just shots of it's head, claws, tail and wings although I thought the effects looked alright. A real wasted opportunity, this film adds nothing new to the horror genre and is pretty poor. Definiteatly one to avoid.
Directed by Ralph S. Singleton this is a seriously poor, stupid and incredibly clichéd horror film. The script by John Esposito based on a short story by Stephen King is terrible. The fog enshrouded graveyard, characters who argue with each other and split up rather than help each other to survive, a stupid over-the-top exterminator (Brad Dourif) who takes his job ridiculously seriously and rambles incoherently on about past exploits and Vietnamese trained rats who becomes the 'comedy relief' plus a blossoming relationship between the two leads which becomes stronger as the film goes on because of the situation they find themselves in. Every cliché in the book is here, you can easily figure out who's going to die and who's going to survive. The scenes in between the rat-bat monster attacks are really dull and uninteresting, I just sat there waiting for the next special effects scene hoping it's not too far away. No explanation for the giant rat-bat monster is given at all, not a single reason for it being there or how it was created. It's just sort of there and that's it, we have to accept it. The acting is uniformly bad, Andrews has to be one of the most bland and uninteresting leading men ever! You can barely understand what Macht is saying because of his ridiculous accent. This film apparently cost $10,500,000! Where did all the money go? I bet the executives at Paramount had heart attacks when they saw what their money had brought! There's not even that much gore in it, a chopped off foot, a man with no hand and a couple of shots of blood splattering over walls and furniture, and that's it. No nudity either I'm afraid. The monster is never really completely seen, just shots of it's head, claws, tail and wings although I thought the effects looked alright. A real wasted opportunity, this film adds nothing new to the horror genre and is pretty poor. Definiteatly one to avoid.