On September 12th, 2025, Lionsgate released the first film adaptation of The Long Walk. The Long Walk was author Stephen King’s first novel, written under the pen name Richard Bachman, prior even to Carrie. Now, over four and a half decades later his book was finally turned into a movie.
The book came out in 1979, but was written during the height of the U.S. Draft for the Vietnam War, which inspired quite a bit of King’s storyline, since the author himself was only nineteen at the time, which made him eligible. However, since King ended up attending college, he was exempt. Still, this impacted him and every young man eligible for the draft in the U.S.; so King wrote this book. And so in true Stephen King fashion, when the movie hit the theaters, it hit heavy and was devastatingly brutal.
The Long Walk movie follows fifty boys who volunteered for a nationally televised walk with no end. They were to walk at a steady pace of 3mph and if they were to fall below that speed they would be given a warning, but after three warnings, the boy would receive his “ticket” in which he would be shot. They would walk until there was only one boy still left alive, and that one boy would get a prize of money and a wish–a wish of anything he could want–and it would be granted to him.
Through this walk, the main focus was a boy named Raymond Garraty, and his reasons and desire for taking part in the walk. How he wishes to exact revenge upon the Major–their “dictator”–for killing his father. It highlights his struggles and the psychological torture he goes through, alongside his new found friends: Peter McVries, Hank Olsen, and Arthur Baker. During this movie there is a wholesome connection that forms between Peter and Raymond, which sets the viewer up for a heartbreaking ending when Raymond sacrifices himself so Peter can win.
It showcases the loss of innocence under an authoritarian government and the psychological toll of doing what could easily be considered an act of leisure with your life on the line, as well as the lives of others.
As a lover of all of Stephen King’s works, this movie didn’t disappoint. It hit home emotionally and morally. Speaking to the side of humanity that wants to triumph over evil and stand up to those oppressing them. The kind of humanity that is willing to sacrifice themself for someone else who, instead of wishing for revenge, would wish for more lives to be spared, like what Raymond did for Peter.
And as much as the ending was shocking, the wish of Peter McVries was truly unexpected. In the end, instead of wishing for two winners, he wished for exactly what Raymond had wished for: a gun from one of the soldiers from the Walk. He used it to end the life of the Major and put an end to the authoritarian dictator that had caused all those lives to end. Then he continues to walk.
While the ending was very well-done, it did differ from the book. In his novel, King has the ending as follows: Peter McVries is the third to die, unlike Billy Stebbins–one of the Major’s bastard sons–who, in the movie, dies third. The second to die is actually Bill Stebbins, leaving Garraty as the last remaining and the victor. However, instead of using his wish to exact vengeance, instead of using a wish at all, Raymond continues walking, as if there is nothing left he can do.
That can be seen as a parallel to when a lot of soldiers came back from the Vietnam war, veterans, but young and at a loss of how to continue on life in any way other than how it had been during the war. It highlights just how much a mental toll war can have on one’s mind, and I think that’s what King meant to do with the ending of the book, with the end of the movie. He shows it through how even after the Walk is all over the winner can’t fathom anything else mentally. It’s what makes the concept all that more powerful.
Along with the change to the end of the movie, there were a few variations added to differ it from the novel. Originally the novel started with 100 boys walking at a pace of 4mph, raising the stakes just a bit, as well as allowing spectators throughout the entirety of the Walk, instead of just at the end. And in the condensing of the number of boys, certain characters were combined to make that happen. Including, Stebbins, who was a combination of the original character and aspects of another character, Scramm, from the novel; Hank Olsen, who, along with his original character, took up Scramm’s trait of having a wife; and another character named Collie Parker, who was portrayed as Native American in the absence of the novel’s Hopi brothers.
These changes didn’t make the movie any less engaging or interesting than the novel, just slightly different, and still enjoyable to those who now have read and seen both versions. This rings true in the 88% rotten tomato rating the movie acquired, and I do believe that the rating was well deserved.
Overall, I was very pleased with the movie. It was quite difficult to watch at times, seeing just how brutal and hopeless everything seemed to be, and while the ending wasn’t a happy one, it was powerful and stuck with me for a long while after I finished watching it. I think it demonstrates just how trauma and death affects the mind and how people never truly heal from a moment, even if it’s over.
