If there’s one movie that’s united our social media timelines this weekend, it’s The Long Walk. But how scary is the film?
Based on Stephen King’s 1979 novel of the same name, The Long Walk tells the story of a group of 50 boys who volunteer for a gruesome annual competition where they must walk along a pre-determined route and not stop or slow down below 3 miles per hour or else risk being shot. The walk ends when there is only boy left, who is awarded a cash prize and the granting of one wish.
The movie has been highly lauded, and stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Mark Hamill, and was directed by Francis Lawrence who also directed The Hunger Games franchise.
Lionsgate
Given the rather gruesome nature of the film, many movie-goers are wondering just how scary the movie is. Well before you go and book your cinema tickets this is everything you need to know about the horror level of The Long Walk, so you know whether you’ll be hiding behind your popcorn or not.
Is The Long Walk scary?
On a technical level here in the UK The Long Walk is rated a 15, with cinemas revealing the strong violence, language and injury detail is responsible for the rating. Its rating is lower than that of other horror movies in recent years including Smile and The Substance which were both rated 18.
The overall consensus of both social media and critics alike, is that while The Long Walk isn’t jump out of your seat, bone-chilling scary like a traditional horror movie, it is scary in the way it’s dystopian plot is unsettling and could be a foreshadowing of things to come.
The Guardian described The Long Walk as one of “grimmest mainstream movies we’ve had for some time” and a “cross between a buddy movie and a horror movie – a war movie without the war.”
Meanwhile Slate says of the movie the “horror is well counterbalanced” and Den of Geek acknowledged there are “times you want to avert your gaze” but overall “the easy watchability of the movie will leave you transfixed”.
However, Empire suggests the movie is not for those without a strong stomach, saying it is “gruelling and grimly violent”.
Lionsgate
And over on Reddit, users generally emphasis the movie has violence which is “brutal and graphic” but that there are no “horror monsters/ghosts/demons type scares” however, they added: “there are some tense sequences. For some people, the idea of this type of dystopia becoming reality is unsettling, but it’s not really a horror movie at all, more like a dark dystopian scifi with intense violence and gore.”
Other users also echo the unsettling nature of the dystopian world the movie portrays with one person saying: “It’s not really a true horror story, more of an extremely dystopic future. There’s some grim moments, and definitely a lot of violence, but like most Bachman (the pen name King wrote under originally) stories it isn’t really a supernatural horror story, more of an existential horror about what society could become.”
And another said: “It’s not exactly a horror story. It’s very brutal and a bit depressing though.”
So, all in all, no The Long Walk is not a traditional horror film that will leave you terrified because of things jumping out and scaring you. However, it may lead to deeper questions and concerns that are far more unsettling in their own right than a jump-scare.
The Long Walk is out in cinemas now
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com ’
