A contest of cruelty disguised as sport in 'The Long Walk'

The adaptation of a Stephen King novel is a dystopian thriller of survival at any cost.

- KATIE WALSH

MURRAY CLOSE Lionsgate

COOPER HOFFMAN, left, and David Jonsson in the movie "The Long Walk."

Things are grim in “The Long Walk,” the adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 novel (published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) that’s essentially “The Hunger Games” for teenage boys or “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” for Gen Z — texts that traffic in the extreme outcomes of American capitalism, a force that rots from within.

“The Long Walk” is the first novel King wrote, one he started around 1966, eight years before his first book, “Carrie,” was published. The plot is simple and incredibly dark: In a dystopian United States under totalitarian rule, 100 teenage boys are selected from a lottery to participate in a contest that only one can win. Whoever survives a multiday, hundreds-of-miles-long walk is rewarded with a hefty monetary prize. Walk until there’s only one left. Slow down and receive a warning. After three warnings, it’s a bullet in the head. The telecast of this walk is intended to inspire workers to increase their productivity.