Sometimes writers will take measures to not be pigeonholed, often using pen names—in Stephen King’s case, for a time he went under the Richard Bachman pseudonym, leaning away from pure horror to more darkly satirical cases. Among these was The Long Walk—amazingly, not adapted at all until now. The storyline concerned an authoritarian militarist alternate America hosting a lethal walking contest to distract from economic woes and an oppressive leadership (hmm).
In many ways, it was like a subversion of things like The Hunger Games—where the contestants aren’t chosen ones but merely trying to survive, or even if they’re trying to stick it to the system, it’s not exactly going to push the whole thing over. Appropriately, Francis Lawrence, who did those adaptations, comes on in to bring us a suitably bleak and for the most part pretty loyal take on King’s story…
Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, and Tut Nyout are our main leads effectively—and Mark Hamill takes into the villain role as he typically does these days, as a growling Major obsessed with complementing gonads, as grandiose as ever whether giving speeches or executing dissidents. The key thing to take here is the chemistry between the leads—who bond together as any young men would in a situation like this, and likewise just as naturally fray apart once things like sleep deprivation, fatigue, and sheer weariness take their toll.
In this contest, slowing down up to three times leaves you with a bullet to the head—so even simple things like tying your shoelaces or up to spraining your ankle can lead to so much worse, keeping the tension high throughout. Our setting seems to be an alternate timeline roughly parallel to the 70s-80s, judging by the cars and clothes—and the desolate rural areas our heroes have to march through give it all a certain surreal atmosphere.
Most of the characters get some sort of rounding—even what feels like your typical abrasive asshole turns out to have more to him. All of this kept me surprisingly engrossed up until the very end—which in typical King fashion wavered a little bit, but not horrendously so.
That leaves the Long Walk as surprisingly solid as King adaptations go—and by sheer coincidence, Hamill starred in another one recently. Perhaps its deliberate conniving by the maniac from Maine, but either way, it leaves me interested enough to see Edgar Wright’s upcoming take on the Running Man too…
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