Horror

THE LONG WALK (2025)


“Just when I thought I was out…they pulled me back in”

In 2023 Justin Mollner wrote and directed the serial killer thriller*, Strange Darling, which took me by surprise. Nowadays, that’s all I ask of my media. To be surprised and moved in some way shape or form.
His writing and direction did just that.

FFWD to today (Wednesday 24th September 2025) and I just came back from seeing The Long Walk, based on Stephen King’s (as Richard Bachman) book of the same name, directed by Francis Lawrence and written/adapted by Justin Mollner.
I’m a fan. Of the film and of Mollner’s writing.

Let’s go back to April 2022 and having taken a hiatus from writing I was inspired to put fingers to keyboard to write about one of my favourite films for a long time. 
Everything Everywhere All at Once. That film did something. Surprised, moved and excited me for the first time in a while. This prompted me to get back to my movie blog and write again.

This year I’ve been slack and I haven’t written anything since October 2024. 10 months. 

And just when I thought I was out…..
That’s a joke, really.
I needed to be inspired to get back on the writing horse and here we are. Giddyup.

David Jonsson as McVries, Cooper Hoffman as Garraty, Jordan Gonzalez as Harkness, Ben Wang as Olson, and Tut Nyuot as Baker in The Long Walk. Photo Credit: Murray Close/Lionsgate

The Long Walk is a beautiful, tragic, human story set in a not too distant dystopian future where a second civil war (pertinent/timely???) has left America financially destitute. The Long Walk refers to a national yearly sport where fifty teenage boys are selected randomly to partake in a survival walk that ends with one winner, while the other 49 all get their tickets stamped.

Battle Royale came to mind as did The Hunger Games, which if we’re being honest, although still decent, is really Battle Royale lite.
A savage game that pits kids against each other with the losers all being dispatched in some messed up way. **

The Long Walk reminded me of another of King’s film adaptations and one of my all time favourite films, Stand By Me.
Friendship, trauma and a human story that contains moments of beauty and profound and genuine poetry. This one shares DNA with that classic.

Mark Hamill as The Major in The Long Walk. Photo Credit: Murray Close/Lionsgate

This adaptation has been a long time coming.
In 1988, George A Romero was touted to make it and when that didn’t happen, Frank Darabont (who had previously directed two of the great Stephen King adaptions and one that is probably considered among the greatest films of all time*** The Shawshank Redemption and followed that with The Green Mile) tried unsuccessfully to get it made.

Then James Vanderbilt (Zodiac/The Amazing Spider-Man) and André Øvredal (Trollhunters, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Last Voyage of the Demeter) were also attached along the way. In 2023, Lionsgate committed to producing the film with The Hunger Games director, Francis Lawrence**** attached. 

Lawrence directs his incredibly talented cast headed by Cooper Hoffman, who is doing his Dad proud and English actor and RADA alum David Jonsson, who was recently in Alien:Romulus*****

Other young support comes from Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Joshua Odjick and another couple of Brits, Tut Nyuot and Jojo Rabbit’s Roman Griffin Davis. Each of them give great work that will hopefully propel them into future great performances.
Although, unfortunately acting is not a meritocracy. Even with great success, offers are not always forthcoming. I hope that these young actors navigate their careers well and are rewarded for the work they did in this film.

The always excellent, Judy Greer gives a heart-wrenching performance as the mother of Cooper Hoffman’s Ray Garraty and the mighty Mark Hamill gives an unwavering turn as The Major, the man in charge of the walk. Hamill, who has had a tremendous run throughout his life is turning in some of the best performances in this stage of his career.
The Life of Chuck and The Fall of the House of Usher, both helmed by Mike Flanagan are two that come to mind.

Jeremiah Fraites (co founder of folk-rock group The Lumineers) scores the film with a stunning, subtle soundtrack that never over-eggs the film and always supports the action on screen. It is well worth a listen as a standalone piece of music (see below :O)).
He had previously worked with Lawrence on a couple of tunes for the Hunger Games movies and this is his feature film composing debut.


The upcoming Edgar Wright new adaptation of The Running Man shares Venn diagram with The Long Walk and both being adapted from King’s works looks to be the third great adaptation this year after the excellent The Life of Chuck.

I have read very little King over the years and I think it’s time to change that. I was always a bit snobbish about it and don’t think I had any right to be so. Judgement error. My bad. I’ve just ordered the book that this film was based on to start me rectifying this miscalculation.
“To err is human, to forgive is divine”. So dear readers and Mr King, please forgive me. It should be said that I am a fan of his witticisms and comments on twotter******.

The relationships between the walkers are layered, real and have dimensions not always seen these days. Brotherhood displayed with vulnerability, strength and connection.
In a time where mental health amongst men is at a low with many succumbing to the false hope of the manosphere and misinformation online, where, in order to supposedly thrive you must eschew any perceived weakness, this is a film that shows young men being vulnerable and the importance of true friendship.
Vulnerability is strength.
Support is necessary.
Friendships are imperative.

This film is on my list of top films of this year.
I’ll double bill it with The Life of Chuck and maybe turn it into the triple along with The Running Man as the King adaption triumvirate of 2025.

Like Gordie’s final thoughts at the end of Stand By Me:
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

The same could be said for the walkers in The Long Walk.

Go see it if its still showing at your local cinema. The big screen is the best way to see a film like this that manages to be entertaining, thrilling and moving.
Shit, that’s what films are meant to be, right?

107 Minutes

* Serial thriller? Skiller thriller? Skrrrt thriller? Scriller killer?
** Are all these films just a metaphor for the way the adults have ruined the world for the generations to come, the youth dem?????
*** I’m not sure I’m on board with that call, I may have to put it through the Punching Up Movie Podcast ringer to see how it comes out in the wash.
**** Has Lawrence got some obsession with killing kids?
Onscreen, of course.
*****As I’m currently watching Alien:Earth and enjoying it, Jonsson’s involvement gives me more reason to watch Alien:Romulus.
****** I know what it’s really called but am not gonna name the beast.

IN A VIOLENT NATURE (2024)

In a Violent Nature poster


A group of unwitting teenagers take a pendant from a dilapidated shed in the woods and unleash the beast.
I mean, don’t be taking any necklaces or jewellery that you find in the woods.
Or else Johnny (aka Fireman Sam Goes Rogue) might come looking for it……….and you at any cost…..….to you.
I’m telling you, if I see anything like that when I go trekking in the violent nature, Imma leave that shit where it is.
For reals.

This new Canadian horror film has been described as an ambient slasher so I’m wondering if this is the beginning of a new genre. All we need is some Come to Daddy vibes from the mighty Aphex Twin and we’ll be all set.

Nature is by its very essence incredibly violent. The cycle of life, from birth to death is brutal.
Early on in the film (see pic above) we see the mostly skeletal remains of an animal that had been snared by a trap and left to die and rot, this gives us an idea of how fucked up this film might be.
The gore in this is off the charts and looks incredibly real.
If you have a weak stomach, defo avoid this one.

Bear with me for a second, could this be seen as an ecological, climate change disaster metaphor?
The young are going to pay for what the previous generations did and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
No matter how they die, they are going to die and it’s all their ancestors fault.

Can we take a second to feel a little pity for the teens?
Teenagers in horror films……wow……poor bastards, not only do they have to go through the metamorphose of puberty (“You’re getting worse….NO, I’m getting better”) and the pitfalls of growing up, they end up absolutely gutted in a wood somewhere.
For what? 
Drinking a bit of booze, smoking a bit of the devil’s lettuce, having a bit of how’s yer father and generally trying to emulate the olds. It just ain’t fair.


The gore.
There have already been a bunch of walkouts during screenings (I love seeing a walkout) but as my fellow podcast host, Adam said after attending a surprise screening of the film “Some walked out because it wasn’t the film they wanted, some I’m guessing walked out due to the slow cinema stylist slant it took on the slasher genre and some unequivocally walked out because of gore (although there is nothing in the movie as genuinely disturbing as the violence in I Saw the Devil. Or as visceral as the last 15 minutes of Immaculate)”.
A lot has been said about the gore and while it is extreme at times, there’s a lot worse out there (Do you wanna play a game?).

In a Violent Nature pays massive homage to the Friday the 13th series, even casting Lauren Taylor, who appeared in Friday the 13th Part 2.
There is a lake and a brilliantly filmed death scene.
There are the woods (the violent nature), the teens, the killer and it’s all here imaginatively put together by director Chris Nash, the very talented crew and cast, who are all believable and committed.


Before I had read the director’s statement in the press notes, I’d already thought of Elephant directed by Alan Clark and produced by Danny Boyle in 1989, which I have just recently watched and is a film that contains very little dialogue and depicts 18 murders in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It is clinical, unemotional and has an observational documentary feel.
The same can be said for In a Violent Nature. Director, Chris Nash had cited Elephant as an inspiration and wondered what it would be like to make a horror film with the meditative, ambient sensibilities of a Gus Van Sant or Terence Malick film. He succeeds by giving us a violent slasher movie that is unlike any before. Sure, it contains the usual innovative murders (shout out to the yogic contontortional one), the teens getting brutalised, a killer that is set to join the annals of Horror film killers with his signature ‘Vejan-Bader’ Smoke Mask that was used by 19th century firefighters and his cold, animalistic demeanour.

This is the third (or maybe the fourth) horror film that will make my list for best films of 2024, mostly for its style and difference. The other ones are Longlegs (See my review here), Immaculate and The Substance (review here) which is not out until September but is absolutely awesome.
All these films are not for the faint of stomach so “a warning, mate” if you’re not into blood being slung about will-nilly avoid these horror gems.

In a Violent Nature is out n August 1st at cinemas across Australia.

1 Hour and 31 Mins