Review – The Long Walk

Can it be? Has the Curse of Terrible Movies Based on Stephen King Novels finally been lifted for good? I was genuinely concerned about the wisdom of attempting to make a movie out of a novella that’s a fairly even mix of introspective thought and children being murdered for failing to walk in a psychotic cross-country death march. But the personal interactions stay interesting for the most part, and the sudden violence is graphic enough to underscore the cruelty of the whole exercise. I also found the framing of the drama intriguing, particularly the art direction. This tale appears to be set in some alternate America that went bad sometime in the 1960s, which relieves the storytellers from the obligation to deal with a lot of 21st century media tropes that would have complicated the story considerably. And if nothing else, I hope this wins the Oscar for Best Sound, as this is the first time I think I’ve ever seen a movie with gunfire that actually sounds like gunfire. Worth seeing