This article contains spoilers for “The Monkey,” “The Life of Chuck,” “The Long Walk,” and “The Running Man.”
Ever since at least the 1980s, if not earlier, author Stephen King has been regarded as a preeminent master of horror. He’s certainly one of the most prolific of all time, writing 65 novels over the past 51 years, and that doesn’t include his short story collections. Over all that work, King has explored a huge variety of fears and terrors, everything from threats rooted in stark reality to evil entities from the beyond. As such, the author is practically an authority on what scares us collectively. While he’s as fallible as the next person when it comes to predicting the future, he has a keen eye trained on how our real-life fears can be made manifest.
Ironically — but far from coincidentally — that sixth sense of King’s has been on full display within the four feature films adapted from his work that’ve been released in 2025. These movies of course demonstrate the author’s range: two of them (“The Monkey” and “The Life of Chuck”) involve a supernatural element, while the other two (“The Long Walk” and “The Running Man”) are distressingly plausible works of speculative fiction, and only “The Monkey” would be categorized as a horror film. What all four movies share is an implicit or explicit depiction of the end of the world as we know it, and all apologies to Michael Stipe, but this trend makes it clear that none of us feel fine. Through these four films, we can see how King can utilize his horror chops for a more existential type of dread, as well as how his work can speak to our present day with as much urgency and topicality as ever.
Read more: The 50 Scariest Horror Movie Monsters Ranked
‘The Long Walk’ and ‘The Running Man’ are desperate warnings against the rise of fascism
For as long as King has been on social media, he’s been very outspoken regarding his political beliefs. His fiction isn’t as forthright as fiction tends not to be, but every so often, King will hatch a Rod Serling-esque idea that will address topical trends. Two of these ideas were originally published under his old pen name of Richard Bachman: “The Long Walk” and “The Running Man.” The 2025 film versions of these novels make significant changes to King’s original stories (which were published in 1979 and 1982, respectively) without diminishing their incendiary urgency, particularly when it comes to warning us of the end of our world via the rise of fascism.
Both Francis Lawrence’s “The Long Walk” and Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man” present a nightmare version of America as a totalitarian state. In the former, the national post-war mood (and the economy) of an alternate 20th century is bolstered through a discreetly mandatory lottery that forces every eligible young man to participate in the titular walk, a contest where there will only be one winner. “The Running Man” expands this idea, presenting a future where an entire Network of game shows is a thinly veiled tool for the government to both control the media and keep the classes docile and/or culled. Both films, at their core, are about the indefatigable human spirit, each film climaxing with an act of revolutionary defiance that cannot easily be ignored or covered up. The political and social urgency of these movies and their bold, pointed finales feels quite timely given various recent events. They serve to show us just how close these horrific versions of the country are to our future, or even our present.
‘The Monkey’ and ‘The Life of Chuck’ show us that the apocalypse can be survived and endured
If “The Long Walk” and “The Running Man” are calls to action, then “The Monkey” and “The Life of Chuck” are salves for those world-changing events we feel powerless to stop. Osgood Perkins’ “The Monkey” revels in its dark humor, as it demonstrates that Death inevitably comes for us all. Not only that, but our fates may very well be as cruel and as brutal as they are random, impersonal, and unavoidable. Given this, the protagonists of the film eventually realize that since they cannot stop the Monkey’s reaping, they might as well embrace the joys in life while they can. The world may be ending, but joy still exists in it.
Mike Flanagan’s “The Life of Chuck” is a far kinder film than Perkins’, yet it shares King’s message of a love of fate. Told in reverse like King’s novella, the film begins with a depiction of the literal end of the universe, with various characters reacting to such extreme events heartbreakingly realistically. It’s revealed that this “universe” was actually one created inside the mind of Chuck Krantz, demonstrating how, when even one person passes away, a multitude of aspects to their life pass with them. Yet Flanagan and King are emphasizing not the devastation of the loss, but the beauty of Chuck’s existence.
Crucially, the Stephen King films of 2025 do not contradict each other. We can face our fate with acceptance and love, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use our power to try and avoid it. Let’s hope we leave fear on the big screen where it belongs, and use the gifts these films give us to help make a brighter future, because it ain’t over yet.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
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