Stephen King's Night Shift stories focus on the unknowns in dark places
This is the second part of my reviews of Stephen King’s Night Shift collection.
Night Shift from 1978 remains my favorite Stephen King short-story collection but it has been quite a while since I read it. So I’m going back through it story by story and enjoying each of them as the little macabre delicacies that they remain. I already reviewed “Salem’s Lot.” Here are my spoiler-less takes of stories 2 through 6 out of the 20 in the book.
“Graveyard Shift” is very much in the running for my favorite. Its status is enhanced by the 1990 movie based off this tale of a weekend cleanup in an extremely dilapidated textile mill. The foreman Warwick is especially memorably played by Stephen Macht (whose other classic role may be his appearance in five episodes of Suits) in a film that may otherwise be considered forgettable. In the story, a Berkeley college boy takes a job in the Maine mill and is forced by Warwick into the extra work if he wants to keep his crummy job. But the crew can’t possibly know what horrors await them below the mill. 5 out of 5 stars
“Night Surf,” at just eight pages long, is one of King’s shortest short stories, but it carries a wallop. Projecting the Covid pandemic that would come along 31 years later. A group of former college students appear to be among the few survivors of a plague called Captain Trips, or formally A6, who may be living out their last days in a New Hampshire beach town. They think they may be immune, but they are far from sure of that. The gang lives and loves and hates on each other, with a memorable moment being when they sacrificially burn a delirious victim of the plague whom they happen upon. 5 out of 5 stars
“I Am the Doorway” sees King shifting course into science fiction. He has less magic here, although the story has a number of memorable if not at least intriguing moments. The story provides the inspiration for one of the main covers of Night Shift - a messily wrapped hand with eyeballs poking out from the fingers. Told from the perspective of Arthur, who has returned from a space flight to Venus that has left him paralyzed from the waste down and with worsening body mutations. Aliens take over his body and they are terrified of and do not like what they see of the humans on Earth. The premise itself makes the story worth reading. King could have probably made it flow a little bit better, but that’s a small complaint. 4 out of 5 stars
“The Mangler” goes back to the King horror theme of Christine and “Trucks” (adapted in movie form to Maximum Overdrive) in which the machines become murderous. The story’s title refers to a folding machine at an industrial laundromat that begins to take on a life of its own. A local professor and police detective determine there are demonic forces at play, as the machine snips at a virgin employee and also swallows an ancient herb, awakening a seemingly unstoppable force. King’s story is creative but bordering on ridiculous. 4 out of 5 stars
“The Boogeyman” may be my least favorite story in Night Shift. It’s about a redneck dad named Lester Billings who goes to a psychiatrist’s office to tell the story of how his four children have all been taken from him by a boogeyman that comes out of closets. There’s nothing much to like about Lester and it’s unclear by the end just what the heck is going on. A nice idea with one of King’s poorer executions, it has been turned into a 2023 feature film that received fairly positive reviews. 3.5 out of 5 stars