Existential Thoughts on 'The Long Walk'

I have been a Stephen King fan for as long as I can remember. From the time I first watched The Shining at an inappropriately young age, to going to the drive-in movies with my parents to see the IT remakes, to being gifted a Christine shirt at Christmas, Stephen King’s stories and characters have always played a huge role in my life.

I was very excited to see this movie when I first watched the trailer, although I didn’t have much previous exposure to its source content. Slap Stephen King’s name on anything and I’m there. Before watching the film, I did more research and found out that this was actually the first book that Stephen King wrote (when he was a freshman in college, mind you!)

I wasn’t expecting to cry so much during a horror movie, but this film took gruesome and gorey elements and combined them with beautiful themes of friendship and the meaning of life. 

The walk itself is almost a metaphor for life. At one point, one of the characters made a comment that no one really wanted to participate in it, but everyone puts their name into the lottery because it seems like that's the only option; therefore, all of them, in a sense, had no choice but to be there, just like how all of us are not given a choice whether or not we come into existence. Ray’s character made another point during the film, a very obvious one that I think about very often: the only thing we are guaranteed in life is death.

Continuing on the metaphor of the walk, you choose who you want to walk with in life, and you choose how to treat people while you are walking. We are all walking together, down the same road, with no real end in sight. Some of our journeys might end sooner than others, but its the memory, the moment, of the walk itself that is more powerful.

Again, the film shows the beauty of the walk itself. We don’t control how long our journey lasts, but we do choose who we walk beside, how we treat them, and how we face the road. Some walks end sooner than others, but the memories, the moments, and the connections we make give meaning to the journey. Friendships in the film show how even brief encounters can leave permanent marks on our lives. Everyone is walking for different reasons, with different perspectives, yet we are all bound together by the same road.

The Long Walk isn’t just one of the better horror films I’ve seen this year—it’s one of the most thought-provoking. I’ve really been in existential thought ever since I watched this one: What does my walk look like? Who am I choosing to walk beside? And what does it mean to walk with purpose, knowing the ending is already written?