So I'm wrapping up the 90's thing with this. What the hell, I started in 1990, might as well end in 1990. Let's do the time warp again!
"Graveyard Shift" is based on a short story by Stephen King and boy does it show. I'm sure they added in a few scenes just to make it a movie length cause for a good chunk of the movie, nothing happens.
The story takes place in a textile mill and we focus on one guy, who's oddly enough wearing a red shirt so I guess this movie has an awesome sense of humor. Red Shirt is running the cotton picker in the...basement? No that can't be, the basement is mentioned later. I don't know where this thing is cause people walk down stairs to get to it.
Anyway, Red Shirt is visited by mice and rats and he talks to them like students. He picks one up and puts it through the cotton picker, which kills it. The mice and rats don't like this so they send in their ringer: some giant shadowy thing off camera that kills Red Shirt.
After the credits, we find John walking through town. He's a drifter who worked and lived everywhere along the East Coast. The setting of this story is Maine, where all of King's stories take place (well, except for the Langoliers but whatever) ((Oh right, The Shining, ok whatever)) (((Oh yeah and Children of the Corn-ok I take back what I said, jesus)))
What was I saying?
John finds a place to live and goes to the mill to get a job. We meet Warwick, who has the same haircut as my Uncle, so now when we go to family get togethers, I'm gonna have to be leary of him. Warwick is the manager/owner of the mill and he has a problem (besides mice and rats and red shirts dying). The basement is a safety hazard and needs to be organized and cleaned in a week or else the mill is going to be shut down. So Warwick needs a cleaning crew to go down there and clean it up.
This is the plot which is stretched out over an hour. Warwick hires John to do the cotton picking. People in the mill and the town give John a hard time for whatever reason. There's a shitload of rats. And Brad Dourif is the Exterminator.
Dourif gets a Robert Shaw-like scene where he talks about rats being used as torture in Veitnam but it literally came out nowhere and I couldn't understand what he was saying cause he was all dirty and sweaty. In fact, every single person in this movie was so incredibly sweaty. Where was this filmed, the Mojave Desert?
There's some more sub plot stuff of chicks Warwick is banging and trying to bang. One chick he was banging finds out she's on the basement clean up crew and is pissed about this so she smashes his car to hell. I should institute a new movie rule/law:
If a nice car is shown, by the end of the movie, it will be trashed. I demand credit for coming up with that.
I also wanna mention this quickly. In a scene in a diner, a guy is in the background reading "Ben". This movie is cute.
John eventually hooks up with Jane (wow, what boring names. Sorry, Mr. King) and eventually Warwick has his cleanup crew put together. So the night of the cleanup, the crew (including John, Jane, a black dude, and three people that pick on John for whatever reason) are in the basement cleaning up with one dude with the hose loves his job a bit too much and wipes out the rats with the hose. I guess they didn't put the lotion on it's skin.
Warwick's a funny guy cause it looks like he's not around then whenever something happens that interests him he just shows up. There's a part where John is moving some stuff and he finds a underground enterance. Suddenly, Warwick is there and opens it up. Soon, the entire crew goes down into the tunnel. But Dumbass Hose Guy freaks out, breaks the stairs, and falls into a pool of water where he's eaten.
The last 20 minutes goes by pretty quickly. Brad Dourif is suddenly killed when a tombstone falls on his head. The other people that made fun of John die quickly. Warwick decided to go batshit insane and smear himself with dirty and go on a rat rampage. John and Jane manage to get away by finding a tunnel that leads to whatever this giant creature is home.
Warwick decides he's not crazy enough, stabs Jane, and wants to kill John. The creature shows up and munches on Warwick. John finds that this hideout leads to the cotton picking room (now wait a cotton pickin' minute! Sorry, I had to say that at least once) and the giant creature, which we don't ever really see clearly, follows.
The monster gets caught in the machine and John throws a pop can at the on switch, and this manages to chomp the monster into bits. John is now laying on the floor and a horde of rats desend upon him and....fade to black. Aww, it's "Inception" all over again!
The first half of the movie is good and the last 20 minutes or so is fucking awesome. The middle part, clearly the part added to King's story, is a bit slow. I'm all for setting up a story, but jesus this took forever. I was just "Ugh, get in the basement and get eaten by that giant rat thing whatever already!" And they probably didn't have to kill Jane, that was kind of a pointless kill.
Anyway, that's it. I know I missed a shitload of 90's movies but between work and the weather (the Misses insists I go outside, I don't know why) I haven't had the time. But there's good stuff coming up so stay tuned for that!
-Jason
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