The amount of Stephen King adaptations we get every year is as prolific as the man himself. Relevancy i s always something to think about when adapting a writer, who’s work spans so many decades. When King wrote, The Long Walk, it was 1979. The world was different in so many ways, right?
The Long Walk novel focuses on a dystopian take on a America being controlled by a totalitarian regime encouraging young men to sign up for a win or die competition for a chance to change their lives and the lives of their families. As mentioned before, it was written in 1979. And while that should make it seem old fashioned, it actually in many ways is a futuristic. And not in that George Jetson flying cars way, more in the dynamics of humanity and the empathy we lack for each other, making it unfortunately a timeless tale.
Differences in the book and movie can mainly be found in the dynamics of race, sexuality and the depth of the relationship of the unfortunate souls on this journey. While in the book, they touch on these subjects, the focus on the individual characters is broader making it much harder to keep track of and ultimately empathize with each of the characters individual fate and hardships.
Because of the short amount of time a movie has, there is clarity in character, or at least who we are supposed to focus on. And because of this we get to have favorites and feel the ups and downs of their story even more. And also to villainize choices we believe we would not make. Teasing people until they get killed is even more dramatic on screen when it is given the chance to live in vibrant color.
Making the leads a white man and a black man also ensures that we see a very clear picture of the American experience from very different perspectives. And while die hard fans of the book may not be fans of this change or the change of passiveness vs violence in ultimate goal, I think the change shows how desperate and hurt our current nation is. How divided we are and how much work we have to do.
I don’t like pitting book against movie, but, in my opinion, The Long Walk is a great adaptation with very little changes from the original, and most of those were made to make it more fast paced and focused.
It was the right time to have this film made. As we inch closer to this being a tainted but not too far fetched reality for us, we need more movies calling us out. Supporting empathy and community and rejecting or observing toxic masculinity for what it is. A backward moving force that’s bring us back to a time when we were divided. I hope to see more horror build on these themes and make hard conversations happen. After all, horror is innately a political statement, and to deny that would make me want you to join a long walk