Best Horror Movie You Never Saw: Graveyard Shift (1990)

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Welcome to Arrow in the Head's The Best Horror Movie You Never Saw, which will be dedicated to highlighting horror films that, for one reason or another, don't get as much love as we think they should. We know plenty of you horror hounds out there will have seen many of the movies we pick, but there will be plenty of you who have not. This column is for all of you!

THE PLOT: Drifter John Hall wanders into a sleepy Maine town looking for work, and he finds it rather quickly. But the Bachman Mills textile plant is having a lot of problems of late. It's understaffed, unsafe, run by a corrupt foreman and is undergoing a serious rat infestation. Add to that the fact that people keep disappearing thanks to an unseen beast that emerges every once in a while. When Hall is assigned to help clean up the mill's cluttered cellar, he and his coworkers discover the horrifying truth that lurks just under the foundation of the building. (Spoiler: it's a giant rat/bat mutant.)

THE HISTORY: Tom Savini was originally supposed to direct a film based on Stephen King's short story in the late 80s, but the studio New World Pictures folded and it didn't happen. Eventually, PET SEMATARY producer Ralph S. Singleton took the reins for Paramount Pictures.

WHY IT'S GREAT: If you've been reading this site for a while, and if you're vaguely familiar with this writer in particular, then you will not be surprised to find me writing about GRAVEYARD SHIFT. I've been beating the drum for this wacky little movie for about a decade, even recording a commentary for it with my former AITH Podcast co-host Ammon Gilbert. And yet, I don't think I've ever written about it extensively. That opportunity has now arisen, thanks to Best Horror Movie You Never Saw, and while I'm sure almost all of you reading this have seen the movie, I'm confident a great many of you dislike it, or at the very least, have little to no respect for it. I'm not here to change your mind on that score, but I am here to say that if you haven't checked out the Ralph S. Singleton film in a long while, you should do so for your own sake. It's a goddamn blast, yes, but also worth watching if only for the performances alone.

My love for the Graveyard Shift has existed for many, many years. I can't tell you when I first saw it, but it was a regular feature on late-night cable when I was a youngin', so my little warped mind was exposed to it early and often. Most of us find that, as we get older and "mature" as humans, the things we enjoyed as kids are not quite as compelling as they were back in the day. Graveyard Shift seems to be a contender for this distinction: it was perfectly natural to find it entertaining as a 12-year-old, but not so much after your tastes have gotten ever-so-slightly more sophisticated over the years. But not so for this man-child. I find Graveyard Shift to be as glorious as it was back then; it's just creepy enough to qualify as a legitimately effective horror movie, while also just silly enough to verge on becoming a camp classic. I don't find it to be campy, honestly, although Stephen Macht's legendary performance (more on him in a bit) surely edges it in that direction. The movie has a rough-around-the-edges charm, presenting a narrative that is completely simple and focused. You can't say Singleton and co. didn't achieve their goals: they set out to make a movie about people being eaten by a giant rat monster, and they made exactly that.

An element I appreciate is that, in many ways, this is a western. (Hear me out.) A drifter – possibly on the run – comes from out of nowhere into a dust-covered small town, looking to make some money and stay out of trouble. The place he ultimately finds work at is run by a corrupt, larger-than-life boss who abuses his employees and runs the mill with an iron fist. There's a girl, a tough girl who won't take the boss' shit and connects with the drifter, although their bond never spills over into full-on romance. There's a gaggle of eccentric supporting players working on the farm – or mill, in this case – played by recognizable character actors. Eventually, the drifter and the evil boss have it out, fighting over the woman in grand fashion, leading to more than one tragic demise. These are classic western tropes. Sure, the movie compliments them with hundreds of rats and a gigantic rat/bat monster, but who hasn't wanted to watch a western with those elements thrown in?

The cast is unusually solid for a "subpar" Stephen King adaptation. While he's not exactly Clint Eastwood, David Andrews exudes a reluctant-hero charisma throughout the film; he doesn't say much, and that's a good thing, for it's the supporting characters who get all the top lines. First and foremost is Stephen Macht as the high-strung, comically maniacal Warwick. No one who has seen this movie can dismiss Macht's performance, which alternates between ferocious and sardonic. It's really something to see; you wouldn't expect the human villain to greatly overshadow the prehistoric rat beast in such a film, but such is the power of Macht's eat-all-the-scenery portrayal of a very wicked man. Then you have Brad Dourif, also giving his all as an unhinged exterminator. There is a  scene (clearly aping the famous Quint speech from Jaws) where the exterminator confides in Hall a story involving hungry rats in Vietnam, and Dourif absolutely kills it. He's not in the film a whole lot, but he absolutely makes his scenes count. The rest of the main players are colorful creeps and misfits; Andrew Divoff, Vic Polizos, Jimmy Woodard and Robert Alan Beuth all show up to do admirable work for guys destined to be rat chow. There's even a rat-catching dog belonging to the Dourif character; how can you not love that?

There's so much to appreciate about Graveyard Shift – those performances, the sets, the atmosphere of creeping dread – and I do believe it has shed some of its bad rep over the years; people are discovering (or rediscovering) this grimy, ghoulish horror gem. Plus, it has what may be the weirdest end credits music anybody has ever heard; it's worth the view just to listen to that bizarre tune!

BEST SCENE: Tough one. I'll take any scene where Stephen Macht is flipping his shit, so maybe a sequence toward the end of the film, where the ragtag survivors find themselves lost in the caves underneath the mill. Macht dials it all the way up to 11 – hell, up to 111 – for these scenes, and we're all the better for it.

WHERE TO WATCH: Scream Factory is releasing a special edition on Blu-ray on July 28th, and yes, I'm absurdly pumped for it. It's also available on DVD, Amazon Prime, Vudu, YouTube, and more streaming services.

PARTING SHOT: Graveyard Shift is often lumped in with terrible Stephen King adaptations like Children of the Corn and The Lawnmower Man. It doesn't belong to sit alongside those. This is a fast, funny, freaky monster movie with some ace performances and a give-no-fucks attitude. Did I mention it's also insanely quotable? "Show's… over!"