Review of Graveyard Shift

When Stephen King hit his stride as an author whose nearly superhuman literary output averaged at least one book per year, his whoring of the rights to said books also yielded more rancid cinematic rapes than a crime-scene photographer (or film critic) would wish to count. "Graveyard Shift" is one such rancid production, a film whose sheer badness on almost every level makes it a slightly hypnotic, "let's-see-how-much-worse-it-can-get" venture, but mostly winds up a jaw-dropping exercise in futility. 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. While this tale of textile-mill workers abused by a shifty, sadistic foreman (Stephen Macht) and menaced by a subterranean rat-bat seems a muddled allegory for the human "rat race" being a literal dive into the darkest pit of Hell, it is lost in the onslaught of terrible acting and unfocused characters. While King (not to mention directors who understand his work) brings a certain local quirkiness to his patented New Englanders, here they are transformed into grotesque, unpleasant yokels whose punchlines fall completely flat (the worst miscalculation being Brad Dourif's hambone Exterminator)–the violence lacks any irony, and is just more grist for the blood-spattered mill. The only remotely credible actor is Macht, whose performance hints at campy greatness that goes unrealized as a result of the script's awkward attempts at intentional comedy. 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.