"Graveyard Shift" review

Graveyard Shift (1990)

Directed by Ralph S. Singleton
Writing credits Stephen King John Esposito

David Andrews.... John Hall
Kelly Wolf.... Jane Wisconsky
Stephen Macht.... Warwick
Andrew Divoff.... Danson
Vic Polizos.... Brogan
Brad Dourif.... Tucker Cleveland/The Exterminator

A bunch of people get told to go down to the basement of an old mill and clean up the mess. It's their bad luck that they run into an army of rats. There's also a big cheese living among the rats and its name is not Ben. It's some sort of big, bad super rat that's crawling around down there and it has the munchies for human flesh.

Yes, it's another rat movie. This time the rat monster has grown to gigantic proportions. "Graveyard Shift" is a simple, straight forward, people vs. rat mutant movie. There's nothing particularly wrong with "Graveyard Shift" but there's nothing particularly right either. It's all kind of ho-hum. Everything goes exactly as you'd expect it to. There's a monster in the basement and it has a ton of horror movie clichés with it. If you're used to this kind of horror movie logic, (always stick your hand into a dark hole, people will twist their ankle at the worst time etc), you'll probably think it's a fair horror flick.

Two last thoughts. The name of the mill is Bachman Textile Mills. Get it? Richard Bachman was/is Stephen King's alter ego. I'm not sure if Bachman was credited with "Graveyard Shift" or if it was a King story. What am I saying? They're the same guy! Or are they? Hmmm... Also, why does the Forman have an outrageous New England accent while no one else does? Were the rest of the workers out-of-towners? Was working the Graveyard Shift at a disgusting mill so tantalizing that people came from out of state just for the privilege of working it?

SCORE: 2 out of 4 ratzillas