At The Movie Sleuth, friend of the Gutter Michelle Kisner has a nice piece on a recent adaptation of Stephen King, The Long Walk (USA, 2025). “One of the unifying features of King’s work, when writing as Bachman, is the prevailing nihilism of the stories and the bleak outlook of the protagonist. The Long Walk novel takes place in an authoritarian version of the United States, which has gone through a ‘change’ for the worse. Every year, a walking competition is held in which one hundred boys are selected to walk a prescribed route without stopping. They must maintain a minimum speed of 4mph, and if they fall below it, they are warned. After three warnings, they are shot and killed. The walk continues until there is only one boy left, and the prize is “whatever they want for the rest of their lives.”

Read more here.