Written By Sam Santiago
Stephen King wrote "The Long Walk" before most of us had our first bad haircut; he did this under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, and now the story is finally getting its moment to torment a whole new generation. The dystopian endurance nightmare hits streaming on January 10, landing exclusively on Starz and bringing with it the simple but horrifying concept that walking should never be this stressful.
Directed by Francis Lawrence ("Constantine"), who clearly has a résumé built on watching people suffer onscreen, and written by JT Mollner, the film drops viewers into a near future where young men are drafted into a nationally televised event that feels like a marathon designed by a sadist or that gym teacher who just loved to watch everyone do laps. The rules are brutally efficient. Keep walking or get shot. No finish line comfort. No inspirational montage that fixes everything. Just miles of pavement and the slow realization that your legs are not your friends anymore.
As the walk drags on, survival turns into a psychological meat grinder. Bonds form, alliances crack, and the idea of winning starts to feel a lot like losing slightly slower than everyone else. What begins as a grim spectacle evolves into a pressure cooker of fear, guilt, and moral collapse, all while the cameras keep rolling because, of course, they do.
Leading the march toward exhaustion are Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson, backed by a stacked cast that includes Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyout, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, and Joshua Odjick. It is essentially a roll call of talented actors bravely agreeing to look progressively worse as the film goes on. When we say "worse," we mean downright degrading at times.
Mark Hamill also shows up, because no dystopian story feels complete without him looming somewhere nearby, joined by Judy Greer and Josh Hamilton. If nothing else, it is comforting to know that even in a bleak future, casting directors still know exactly who to call.
Behind the scenes, Lawrence produces alongside Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, and Cameron MacConomy, all veterans of horror and high-stress cinema. If their past work is any indication, expect tension, despair, and at least one moment where you question why anyone ever thought walking was a harmless activity.
