Widescreen
Actor/Actress: David Andrews , Brad Dourif , Kelly Wolf
Director: Ralph S. Singleton
Year: 1990
Runtime: 88
Rating: R (MPAA)
Language: Original: English; Closed Captioned: English
Color: Y
Closed Captioned: Y
UPC: 097363251248
When an abandoned textile mill, now home to a horde of rats, is reopened, it also unleashes a rash of mysterious deaths. The only link between the killings: they all take place between 11 pm and 7 am, otherwise known as the Graveyard Shift. Based on a short story by Stephen King.
The owner of a run-down mill hangs a perpetual "Help Wanted" sign outside his building. He's constantly in need of new workers because old employees keep mysteriously disappearing. Could it have something to do with the rat invested basement that the mill's employers are being forced to clean out? When an exterminator goes to the bottom of the building he finds more than a family of rats -- and what he sees down below the mill probably accounts for all those missing millworkers!
The 19th film adaptation from Stephen King source material, but at least two more have come out since its release. The latest film in the Steven King camp, "Needful Things" was released in September 1993. The short story that this particular film was based on comes from his 1978 anthology, "Night Shift."
Directorial debut for Ralph S. Singleton. He had previously worked as an associate producer on another King-inspired film, "Pet Sematary" (1989).
Shot on location, much of it in an actual textiles mill called Bartlettyarn Mill in Harmony, Maine. It is the only mill left in the US to use the "picker" method to comb and separate the bales of wool. Most mills stopped using this method over 40 years ago. Other locations were also in Maine, most within a short distance of Stephen King's home in Bangor. They used the Bangor Waterworks, and what local legend calls the oldest barn in Maine located in Brewer.
Gary Gero's BIRDS AND ANIMALS UNLIMITED provided the supply of rats needed to populate the horrific old mill.
