La créature du cimetière

Right then, I've read every review up until this one and I have to say..its the same old story - you're mostly all fruitcakes. GRAVEYARD SHIFT is one ripper of an admittedly "oddball" movie. A few people evidently share this view which is encouraging at least.

The film is a terrific character study and never have I come across a more depressingly grotty and apt setting for a bleak horror film. You need little imagination to smell the filth and dirt. David Andrews makes a superb anti-hero, as the college-boy/drifter who takes it right up to Mill owner Warwick...as dislikable a screen presence as any and so well played by Stephen Macht. Loved the caddie-bashing sequence. Brad Dourif as the Exterminator was simply out of his tree here - overacting????? hardly! this is Brad Dourif we're talking about!

So, four-fifths of you heaped scorn on the rat/bat? (it was a BAT actually) What the HELL does it matter WHAT it was - a feral chicken even? I've seen way worse monsters than this in my time around horror flicks. The production values on this film were high, this was NOT a rabid el-cheapo along the lines of HOWLING II !

In case you're interested. I would rate this as one of the better horror flicks of the last millennium. If I'm losing my objectivity then it must be a case of collective hypnosis because everyone in this family (and you're talking seriously varied tastes here) likes this flick! I would rate it a 6.75 !

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. Dwelling a little more on the human element and why the townspeople behave as they do toward the new mill worker (a drifter with a college ed), would have helped. Unfortunately, the script doesn't give any of the actors a chance to develop credible characters.

Nevertheless, loopholes and all (inconsistent motivations for the things certain characters do), GRAVEYARD SHIFT manages to serve viewers a fair share of unexpected twists and turns in the course of a typical King tale of terrorized victims which just happens to take place in his favorite domain, Maine. None of the performers are well-known (which can be a good thing), except for Brad Dourif who is hilariously over-the-top as The Exterminator. It doesn't help that the female lead is particularly unappealing.

What helps considerably are the able performances of David Andrews and his uneasy relationship with boss Stephen Macht, heavy on the Maine accent. Macht has the perfect face for sneering villainy. Andrews' predicament as the new mills worker is what kept me wanting to see how things turned out. The rat-filled prologue should have warned me of things to come, but even a dedicated horror fan should get some unexpected jolts from the last half-hour.

Not a great horror film, but one with the atmosphere down perfectly. You can almost smell the stench of Andrews' surroundings and the sweat on his back as he makes the most of a gruesome situation. I understand the new DVD version is an excellent transfer that makes the most of the gritty atmosphere.

Definitely not for those who can't stand the sight of the nasty little critters. I just happened to be in the mood for a spooky movie, and settled back to watch this on TV. Certainly not the worse King film committed to film and it does have its moments of pure terror.

But still, the subject matter is just a bit too unpleasant to give this any sort of "must see" recommendation. Strictly for die-hard King fans.

Films like this one were released by the bucket load in the 1980's, but as 1990 approached; they became less and less common. Still, there are a lot of silly horror flicks that were released in the 90's debut year, and, surprisingly, this one isn't all that bad. 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. The film is based on a short story by Stephen King. Nearly everything that King has ever touched has been turned into a film, with a lot of mixed results. I would put this one in the middling category, which isn't a bad place to be in considering all the failed adaptations. The plot is typically thin (it is a SHORT story!) and it follows a man who gets a job in a cotton mill. The place is infested with rats, and after being charged with cleaning the place up, our hero finds a trapdoor and soon he and his team are up against the reason rats have made their home in the mill...

One thing that really stands out about this film is the atmosphere. Director Ralph S. Singleton delights in presenting a fetid and disturbing aura around the central location, and this helps the story massively and gives the film an almost 'odyssey' approach when the characters finally make their way underground. I don't find rats scary, personally, but many people do and this film could easily be a reason why! The way that the rats surround the characters is brooding and frightening and provides the film with one of it's key elements. 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. I'm not a massive of fan of Dourif personally, but I respect his ability to shine in campy productions. 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.

Bland David Andrews is a quiet hunk drifter who starts the late shift at a grimy Maine textile mill, headed over by a sadistic sleazeball boss (Stephen Macht). The basement work crew start falling prey to a giant rat monster that lurks underground. 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). Everyone yells and screams a lot, but Kelly Wolf (as a tough female worker who can hold her own) and Brad Dourif (as 'Nam vet pest exterminator Tucker Cleveland) are the only two who bring any spark to their roles.

This flick feels like something you'd come across late at night on cable, and I mean that in a good way. Sure, this is definitely something that *could not* air on cable without some serious editing, but it still has that *feel* to it. I can't believe this is sitting at a 5.0 on IMDb... definitely deserves more than a 6.0 average. Great off-the-wall characters, an even more off-the-wall premise, and a whole lotta fun. This flick is the definition of 'underrated'. So many actors here should've gone on to do more stuff -- it's a shame they didn't.

Prepare for a good time with this one if you're a creature-feature fan -- it won't disappoint!