Graveyard Shift (1987)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This was a very popular movie rental under the title "Graveyard Shift" back in the 80's. The movie has a combination disco/ Miami Vice feel to it. The Travolta looking lead as well as the sound track gives it that classic 80's feel. Steven is a vampire in NYC who, like all vampires works the Graveyard Shift. Steven senses when women are in their "death cycle" at which time he makes them his lover and gives them a nibble. They in turn become vampires, who Steven never calls. He is a cab driver.There is a subplot involving a woman named Michelle, who directs vampire videos, but apparently not to well. She is also terminal. Steven eventually ends up at a Halloween party at her house. Michelle's husband, who plays the field, is jealous, but Michelle is in love. The women vampires kill their victims. The cops are trying to figure out where the bodies are coming from.The film uses red and blue lighting to represent heat and cold, hot and cold bodies. Sometimes it is effective, other times it doesn't work and is annoying. The movie also had some erotic nudity, especially one blue-lit scene with Kim Cayer, which was perhaps the main reason for its popularity. They don't even show her scene on the back cover and they should have plastered it on the front. It sold the movie. I think they did themselves a disfavor by re-releasing it under a different title, especially a bad one.Sex and nudity. Not much blood for a vampire film.

I have to disagree with the last reviewer. The movie is not as bad as he makes it out to be. Yeah, of course it has it's faults like majority of 80's B Grade movies but I haven't seen Central Park Drifter in years up until now and still find the film to be watchable. If you are looking for the hairs to stand up on the back of your neck and want to watch this for thrills you won't get it here. If you just want a horror film to watch with vampires involved and has an OK storyline then you can be entertained. If you want to take this seriously as I speculate the previous reviewer did, then you won't. I rate this movie half for its efforts based on storyline and the performances of actors was OK. As for killings...the murders were average and showed little blood. You won't find it gory here.

This was an interesting vampire flick for the premise at least. The 1980's style is great and the film is very noirish, but the pacing is a bit slow and the actual editing is too fast paced, cutting from scene to scene too quickly and leaving you wondering how people got where they were or how things ended up like they did. The score is sorta typical of the mid-late 1980's, which isn't a bad thing as most people would have you believe. The setting and style of the film reminds me of Miami Vice or even Fright Night, which was a better film in my opinion. Still, all things considered, I've seen way worse movies. All in all, worth one watch at least and not the horrible dreck that some folks on here make it out to be. Certainly not the worst movie ever done.

Not to be confused with the (actually slightly superior) film from 1990 of the same title, Graveyard Shift is the story of a vampire taxi driver. The premise of the film actually seems quite interesting; a taxi driver would be a good job for a vampire considering all the opportunity he would have for finding victims and this coupled with a trashy eighties vibe and some decent gore could have lead to a decent film; but instead what we end up is a thoroughly turgid vampire flick devoid of most of the elements that make the subgenre great. The base plot sprang from the central premise is that the vampire/cabbie meets a young woman that he likes and turns her into a vampire instead of killing her; leading her jealous husband to take revenge. The main reason the film doesn't work is down to the dull script which doesn't give us any reason to care for the characters or anything that is happening in the film. The script defies logic and most of the characters are just 'there'. There a few good moments in the film, but mostly it's just trash and ultimately rather boring too. I'm not surprised that this film has not won itself a better reputation - the reason is simply that it doesn't deserve one. Leave this rubbish well alone!