The Long Walk: Military Enlistment and a Resurgence of Death Game Movies
“I don’t have much to lose, but I have everything to gain and that’s why I’m here.” - Peter McVries (The Long Walk)
Lionsgate’s new horror movie The Long Walk hit theaters on September 12th, marking a definite return of the ‘Death Game’ dystopian to the big screen and introducing a new angle to a genre that we don’t often see. The movie follows 50 young men from each state in the US, participating in a televised contest in which the winner is the last competitor still walking. If a player stops walking or goes below the minimum speed for too long, they are promptly shot and killed.
Unlike other ‘Death Game’ movies, The Long Walk depicts what appears at first glance to be a simple competition, with only one game and no direct combat between its players. Sure, the competitors have their rivalries but at no point do they ever intentionally try to kill one another. In fact, throughout the vast majority of the film we watch as these boys help one another, encouraging everyone forward and helping each other stay alive.
Though seemingly just a new addition to the genre, The Long Walk actually predates movies and shows such as The Hunger Games, Battle Royale, and Squid Game. First released in 1979, the Stephan King novel was a criticism of the Vietnam War. At the time, many young American men volunteered or were drafted into the military, only to become disillusioned by the reality of war once deployed. His novel, and this film represent this disillusionment brilliantly, offering a complex interpretation of a genre that many would consider to be highly oversaturated.
What also separates The Long Walk from other Death Game movies of its kind, is the manner in which the boys participating in this competition become players. Unlike most other Death Game stories in which the players have no choice but to participate (with the exception of the main character), every single player in The Long Walk is a volunteer for the competition. The movie even makes it clear that players had the chance to back out before the game began, showing the dedication and willingness of each character to participate.
This volunteer aspect of the ‘Death Game’ is explored in a conversation between the protagonist, Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), and the rest of the main cast. In this conversation, Ray vents to the rest of the characters about how every boy they know applies to participate, implying that there is a sense of obligation even though it’s supposedly a ‘choice’. Unlike Squid Game which shows the players participating willingly for money, The Long Walk adds societal pressure to the focus of its narrative.
In the world of The Long Walk, every boy is conditioned to perceive the competition as a noble expression of nationalism. If a boy weren’t to volunteer or were to back out before the walk, he would become a social pariah. Just like how military enlistment is conditioned into the male population of a hyper nationalist society, draft dodging and avoiding military service is demonized to the point where death under military enlistment is a preference to avoiding it altogether.
Even the ending of the game exemplifies this metaphor, with the winner being granted $1 million dollars and a wish before fading into obscurity. The winner isn’t allowed to change the politics of the country or try to stop future games from happening. This reflects the lives of many veterans like those who fought in the Vietnam War, who were practically abandoned by the American government yet blamed for the war by the public.
The marching of the players is meant to represent the marching of soldiers and the deadly consequences of a soldier who isn’t able to keep going. They are provided rations and given as much water as they’d like, yet their unavoidable injuries are ignored, treated as the fault of the walkers themselves, and ultimately considered a death sentence.
It’s also important to note that just like how The Long Walk competition is broadcasted on television, the Vietnam War is widely considered to be the first televised military conflict. The competitors have seen this competition on television since they were children, yet they still believed in their own ability to beat the odds and survive.
Most other ‘Death Game’ movies present their players as unwilling victims of a situation they have no control over. The Long Walk, however, goes to lengths to show the control players have over their own fate and how that control is the real illusion within their lives. It is the ease in which they could have avoided playing the game which makes the story so tragic, and which sets it apart from similar narratives. Stories like later seasons of Squid Game and The Hunger Games may try to depict this illusion of control yet inevitably miss the mark by making their main protagonists willing participants.
The success of The Long Walk is undeniable, but the question still stands for how it will continue to evolve the ‘Death Game’ genre and whether or not it marks a new age of these types of films. Already we’re seeing new trailers for other Stephan King adaptations such as The Running Man which also depict a willing participant within a different dystopian ‘Death Game’. That being said, if a resurgence does occur, no doubt a larger focus will be on the moral ambiguity and voluntary participation of its players, perhaps even our protagonist themselves.