7 Stephen King Adaptations That Are Unintentionally Hilarious
6. Graveyard Shift
When drifter John Hall (David Andrews) accepts a job at Bachman Mills, he has to deal with 2 things: the obvious rodent problem (someone kills a rat in front of him at the interview) and his uptight colleagues. Andrew Divoffs surly white trash asshole is bad enough, but best of all is the character played by the man no bargain basement horror is complete without, Mr Brad Dourif. Billed as The Exterminator, and given to bug-eyed ranting about how the Viet Cong used to feed American POWs to rats, Brads appalled when Andrews doesnt take him seriously. I aint one of those baby-burning flashback f**k-ups you see Bruce Dern playing, he says, so quit your grinning! So severe is Bachmans rodent problem, in fact, that two workers are killed by vermin in the first 25 minutes, causing the management to react in true Bad Horror Movie style they hang out a Now Hiring sign and pay no attention to the mounting death toll. Theres also Something Unseen in the basement, so when a black fella named Charlie applies for the position and the creepy foreman starts handpicking a team to clean the factory on July 4th weekend.well, you can see where this is going. Any hope that the characters will tell Mr Foreman where to go disappears when they start blasting rats with high-pressure hoses (while The Beach Boys sing Surfin USA on the soundtrack), causing the monster to put in an appearance, and you can see why the filmmakers kept it off screen. Supposedly a giant rat, albeit one with talons and leathery wings, it picks the characters off one by one until only Andrews remains, and it might not surprise you to learn that mankind emerges triumphant. Given that the same species produced this film, thats being overly optimistic.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
