I think the Stephen King adaptation curse may be broken.
We’ve gotten a lot of King adaptations in the last five to ten years, and pretty much all (save Salem’s Lot, which I still found pretty fun) of them were solid. Most recently both The Life of Chuck and The Monkey premiered to solid reviews, and more are on the way later this year. I think a lot of writers are starting to pursue the rights to these stories because they’re fans, and genuinely want to do right by the fantastic world-building and deep character writing of the books.
The Long Walk sits on another level though. I wasn’t prepared for how good this movie was, and how committed the team of Francis Lawrence and JT Mollner was to creating this brutal and haunting narrative. In terms of quality, this is The Shawshank Redemption, not It: Chapter 2.
The story follows a group of fifty young men participating in The Long Walk: a dystopian competition meant to “inspire greatness” in an economically devastated post-war America. The rules are simple: walk at a speed of three miles per hour. If you stop or slow, you get a warning. After three warnings, you die. Those who flee will die, those who give up or faint will die. As Mark Hamill’s character the Major tells us: “there is one winner, and no finish line.”
Like the book, the movie is deeply bleak. It has an unrelenting horror that I can only compare to movies like Schindler’s List or Requiem for a Dream. We see bullets cut through heads at close range. Men shuffling along with broken limbs. Bodies breaking down in real time as piss and shit flow at close camera range. I saw Bring Her Back earlier this year, but found this film to be much more upsetting to watch. It’s just non-stop rubbing your face in the nightmare that is this world.
Unlike the previously mentioned films though, The Long Walk does offer a few brief moments of reprieve. The character’s bonds feel real and some of King’s cheesier dialogue feels right at home. You start to feel for each of them so much that you can’t look away, even in the most grisly moments. I’m new to Cooper Hoffman as an actor, but he’s really great here. His Ray Garrity is much more likable than his more douchy counterpart in the book, but the bones are still there. David Johnson really steals the show as McVries, and serves as the absolute beating heart of this movie. For all its horrific moments, scenes between Hoffman and Johnson kept a seed of hope in this dark setting. I can’t not mention Mark Hamill as the Major though. He’s having the time of his life in his “weird old guy” era, and I can’t wait to see more from him.
King poured all his rage and frustration about Vietnam into this book, and the movie echoes this openly. I’d actually argue the changed ending does a better job than the novel at enforcing the theme: this is pointless death that breeds more death. I’m not going to give anything away, but my jaw was absolutely on the floor as the credits rolled.
Maybe I’m a King simp, but I think this movie is good in a way that other adaptations aren’t. It doesn’t shy away from the most chilling aspects of the story, while still giving space for the characters to feel fleshed out in the movie’s less than two-hour run time. While it’s unlikely to be noticed during award season, I’m confident this will get cult-classic status and live among the horror greats for years to come.
