Stephen King adaptations seem to be something of a hit or miss and this particular feature "Graveyard Shift" (from a short tale) seems to find itself in the latter camp. After watching it for the first time, I didn't think it was as bad as it reputation lets on but I wasn't wowed over by it either. Quite a lumbering, by-the-numbers and threadbare creature on the rampage outing.
An isolated small town community sees its business mainly arrive from their local textile mill. This is re-opened, after an accident saw someone die. A team of workers are hired to work in it and also clean it up as the decayed structure is a home to a horde of rats. However that's the least of their problems as there's something much bigger and hungrier shacked up in the mill's cellar.
The makeshift story is rather daft, nothing is truly explained and the set-pieces are only there to set-up the cheap, dreary shocks which are plastered throughout. There's a real nastiness within. Some moody atmospherics from its gloomily dirty windmill setting with a neighbouring graveyard (despite some stagy direction), along with a colourfully intense support role by Brad Dourif as a rodent exterminator make it worth a gander. David Andrews is in the lead and draws up very little, while Stephen Macht overdoes it. Kelly Wolf is half-decent and Andrew Divoff shows up in minor support. The f/x work is modest for it low-budget, so is the creature design; something of a bat cross rat hybrid. Never does the camera get you a good look of it, as it stays hidden or in the shadows with only glimpses. A so-so creature feature.
An isolated small town community sees its business mainly arrive from their local textile mill. This is re-opened, after an accident saw someone die. A team of workers are hired to work in it and also clean it up as the decayed structure is a home to a horde of rats. However that's the least of their problems as there's something much bigger and hungrier shacked up in the mill's cellar.
The makeshift story is rather daft, nothing is truly explained and the set-pieces are only there to set-up the cheap, dreary shocks which are plastered throughout. There's a real nastiness within. Some moody atmospherics from its gloomily dirty windmill setting with a neighbouring graveyard (despite some stagy direction), along with a colourfully intense support role by Brad Dourif as a rodent exterminator make it worth a gander. David Andrews is in the lead and draws up very little, while Stephen Macht overdoes it. Kelly Wolf is half-decent and Andrew Divoff shows up in minor support. The f/x work is modest for it low-budget, so is the creature design; something of a bat cross rat hybrid. Never does the camera get you a good look of it, as it stays hidden or in the shadows with only glimpses. A so-so creature feature.