YMMV / Night Shift (1978)

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Just what is "The Boogeyman," exactly, and why does it apparently target Lester Billings and his family? Some readers have speculated that the boogeyman is in actuality a boogeywoman; the ghost of Lester's mother (or possibly her rotting corpse), seeking to destroy Lester Billings and his family just because she hates them. Alternatively, perhaps the creature is a manifestation of Lester's own thoughts; he tells Dr. Harper he loved his kids and everything he did that made them vulnerable to the boogeyman was meant to protect them, but a more subtle analysis reveals his subconscious feelings towards his wife and children: in a very real way, he hated them and wished to be rid of them for good.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In "Quitters, Inc" when Dick asks Jimmy if he put on weight:
  For a moment he thought Jimmy McCann looked almost grim. "Yes. A little too much, in fact."
  It turns out Donatti and his henchmen have a way of discouraging this, too.
• Narm:
  • The description of what happens to those poor folks who get caught in The Mangler is absolutely horrific. However, the notion of said machine lumbering down a street after it breaks free and escapes the laundromat is almost cartoonish.
  • "Battleground" is played for Kafkaesque horror, but being stalked and attacked by sentient army men toys who conduct themselves as a proper military outfit is very easy to see as comical rather than frightening— especially when they offer terms of surrender to Renshaw by pushing the tiny document under the bathroom door.
  • The ending of "The Boogeyman", where the creature is revealed to have impersonated Dr. Harper, and possibly Nurse Vickers, just to trap Billings. Even setting aside the lifelike mask the thing is mentioned to have worn, it raises so many needless questions in favor of one final twist — did the creature kill Harper and assume his place? Is this a trick it uses often, to torture its traumatized victims further? Does the boogeyman, as evidenced by the fact that Billings came to him willingly, run a legit therapy practice on the side? Given that Lester mentions Tales from the Crypt, it might've been an attempt by King to evoke EC's ropey twist endings, but the result is somewhat absurd for what's otherwise a grimly serious story.
  • Actor John Glover's narration in The Stephen King Collection: Stories From Night Shift occasionally wanders into Narm territory, especially during "The Boogeyman," although some listeners might see it as a case of Narm Charm.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • In "Gray Matter", we have the charming tale of a man who is transformed into a fungoid blob caused by a bit of gray slimy guck infesting one of his nightly cans of beer. Later, we hear his son's story of seeing what's become of his father eating the bloated, putrefying, maggot-ridden corpse of a cat.
  • In "The Lawnmower Man", the title character's self-driving machine runs over a mole (an analogue of an earlier scene where the same thing happens to a cat, albeit with a different mower). The man, following close behind, eats the body of the mole just as he has been eating the expelled grass clippings.
  • "The Mangler" — imagining a person crushed and folded by an industrial laundry's steam ironer (and having their remains taken out in a basket) is enough to make someone ill.
  • The blind, wriggling little babies suckling a giant mama rat, also blind and legless, in the basement of the mill in "Graveyard Shift."
• Realism-Induced Horror: "The Woman in the Room" has no supernatural elements; it's about having to watch a parent die a slow and agonizing death. (The story was inspired by the death of Stephen King's mother).
• Squick: Several of the stories, but especially "The Lawnmower Man". Much of "Gray Matter" is pretty squicky, too, but particularly the maggot-infested dead cat Richie pulls out of the wall and eats.
• Tear Jerker: "The Last Rung on the Ladder", and "The Woman in the Room".
• Values Dissonance: With smoking of all things. The nastier stuff in the book (murder, torture, rape, racism etc) were not socially accepted when King wrote these stories and they are not written as acceptable. On the other hand, modern readers may be shocked at how much smoking was prevalent in culture. In "Sometimes They Come Back" high school teacher Jim Norman has no problem letting a student light up in the Faculty Lounge. "The Man Who Loved Flowers" takes place in May 1963 and two pregnant women are smoking on the street. The narrator of "The Woman in the Room" lights up in a hospital and helps his terminally ill mother take a drag.
• Values Resonance:
  • "I Know What You Need" fits incredibly well to the idea that took a few more decades to gain traction of the "Nice Guy" who is actually a Manipulative Bastard and really doesn't care about his romantic conquests at all.
  • The titular creature from "The Boogeyman" is only actually seen in the act of killing once, and is doing it by shaking the child to death. Shaken Baby Syndrome was almost unknown at the time, but has tragically become far better known in the years since.
• The Woobie : Quite a few, but special mention to Richie's son, Timmy in "Gray Matter." He lives alone with his father who's slowly turning into a Blob Monster. After a while, Richie cannot bear any light and only consumes beer that he demands to be heated.
  Can you feature that? The kid all by himself in that apartment with his dad turning into, well, into something... an' heating his beer and then having to listen to him - it - drinking it with awful thick slurping sounds, the way an old man eats his chowder: can you imagine it?