Director – Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend)
Starring – Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza, Old Guy), David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus, Murder is Easy), and Garrett Wareing (Dead Sea, Agonist)
Release Date – 2025
Rating – 3.5/5
I love when I get to review the film or television adaptations of Stephen King’s work. He had such a huge impact on my childhood. I’ve mentioned in several reviews how watching Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead as a kid is what got me started with horror but it was Goosebumps and a few novellas from Stephen King that really kickstarted my obsession. Goosebumps caught the brunt of my obsession but the few books of King’s that I did have I read over and over again until the spines wore out.
I’ve been fortunate to review several adaptations of his works over the years and always get excited when the opportunity presents itself. A few days back I received a copy of The Long Walk to review. This is one I had always heard about but never had the chance to read it. This made me really interested in the film and even more so when I saw that it was helmed by Francis Lawrence who also directed Constantine and I Am Legend. I couldn’t wait to jump into this one!
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows an alternate 1970s where the US is a police state. The military hosts an annual competition with boys from each state are selected, or volunteer, for the chance to win anything they want. The contest is simple, walk a steady 3 miles per hour and you get three warnings if you drop below that. You will be shot if you fail to maintain that speed after the three warnings. **Spoiler alert**
I can see why Francis Lawrence was offered the job to direct this one due to it’s similarities to The Hunger Games franchise that he started a decade ago now. It’s not the wildest or the most gruesome of the King adaptations I have seen but it was a fantastic film that I’m glad finally got off the ground.
The acting in this one is fantastic. The film is overflowing with memorable characters ranging from legendary Mark Hamill’s performance as The Major to most of the contestants. The film’s leads, Cooper Hoffman and Davis Jonsson, deliver great performances but they are among amazing performances from the entire cast. I absolutely loved the casting in this one and will be replaying a lot of the scenes in my head when I take the time to read the original novel.
The story for this one has to be the influence for many of the competition based horror and sci-fi flicks that we’ve seen over the years. Hell, I feel like this even influence King himself to write The Runningman. I haven’t read the novel, as I stated earlier, but knowing that it was written in the early 70s and follows people struggling in their police state as they compete to better themselves or die during the competition. This is the same premise as Battle Royal, The Hunger Games, The Runningman, and to a lesser degree, The Condemned.
I love these types of stories and what The Long Walk does better than the others is that it brings about the humanity of the contestants. These other films doesn’t go to the lengths that this film does to show the characters pain and turmoil prior to the contest. This is especially true in the film Battle Royal where the children are just tossed into the game. Here we see that they are all struggling which is why they chose to risk their life and never see their families again. We have great pacing, a lot of emotionally charged scenes, and a lot of dialogue heavy scenes that manage to hold the viewer’s attention. The movie is on the longer side of the run time but the action, character interactions, and pacing makes the time fly by.
Finally, the film has a lot of on screen deaths. They are bloody and extremely violent but the use of computer generated effects are obvious. While a few does have some light practical effects, the bulk of the scene us made up by visual effects over practical. Overall, The Long Walk may not be my favorite Stephen King adaptation but god damn was it a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this one and was surprised by just how violent the film was. While I would have loved practical effects, the visuals were not that bad. Check it out!
