By Drew Dietsch
| Published 8 seconds ago
Whenever the world gets darker, I find myself diving into dark science fiction about the commodification of humanity’s murder by those in power. The framework that seems to be most digestible to wide audiences is framing this concept as Games in science fiction.
You can rattle off any number of examples across any number of different media, but I find it intriguing that there are three movies coming out in 2025 that are once again using this concept to tell some potentially challenging and bleak stories.
Two of these happen to be adaptations of Stephen King novels he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, while the third looks darker than even the horror maestro would go.
The Running Man
The first of these I’m going to focus on is The Running Man, even though it’s releasing later in the year and the novel from King was written later. Why? It’s got the biggest attention and budget out of these three movies. That means it’s the movie most primed to be a success and reach the widest possible audience.
The Running Man was adapted into an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle back in 1987, but it was so far removed from the source material that a new movie version makes sense.
In the new film and the original novel, the protagonist Ben Richards is selected to be on a game show where he must avoid detection out in the world. It turns a poor, desperate, out-of-work man who just wants to get healthcare for his child into the ultimate target with the promise of a perfect, provided-for life if he can win the game.
It’s a pretty obvious metaphor for the system of capitalism turning us against each other so we won’t turn on the rich. The new Edgar Wright film looks to be embracing that social commentary but it’s also being sold as a high-octane thrill ride. I love those kinds of movies and I love Wright’s brand of kineticism, but I hope he’s willing to take the movie to some of the harsher and more shocking places the novel goes.
Specifically, the novel’s ending. I hope you are capable of reading comprehension — a legitimate concern these days — and don’t require some warning label about spoilers outside of this sentence. In the novel, Ben flies a jet into the Games Building while flipping the bird at the elite schmucks that run the show. It’s darkly comic in the novel, but 9/11 created the belief that no movie version would ever turn that kind of imagery into one of heroic defiance.
If Wright’s movie does go there and adapt the novel’s ending in some recognizable form, it could end up as one of the most controversial talking points in movies this year. I’m not going to hold my breath that we’ll see that happen, but there’s no denying that the other Stephen King movie coming out this year will be unavoidable with its darkest ideas.
The Long Walk
The Long Walk is my favorite Stephen King novel after the one about the spooky clown. Fans have been waiting for a movie version of The Long Walk for decades. After a few stalled attempts, we’re finally getting the feature film of a deadly game that sacrifices children from around the country in the name of nationalism.
If that sounds like The Hunger Games to some of you, it won’t be surprising to know that the main director of that franchise, Francis Lawrence, is the one behind the camera for The Long Walk. In some way, this looks to be Lawrence going for an even more brutal and fatalistic take on this kind of sci-fi story.
I’m thrilled that The Long Walk is finally getting turned into a movie and that it looks to be trying its best to honor King’s novel. Mark Hamill is always a welcome presence and casting him as the fascist villain is great, I can’t wait to see that performance.
But more than that glee, I hope The Long Walk does challenge audiences with its brutal depictions of armed soldiers murdering children, and the apathy with which this fascist government allows these children to die for our amusement and a false sense of national pride.
Then, there’s the other movie you probably don’t know about that’s the real downer.
The School Duel
The School Duel is an independent film written and directed by Todd Wiseman, Jr. that posits a near-future America where gun control has been abolished and school shootings have risen to unprecedented levels. The government’s reaction is a statewide competition where children sign up to compete to kill each other in an effort to eliminate the students most prone towards violence.
Instead of doing anything to curb actual gun violence, The School Duel presents a psychotic American solution that I wouldn’t be surprised to see some people in the real world try to justify.
Shot in appropriate black and white, The School Duel is the most daring with this idea out of any of these listed movies. It’s clearly a very angry and despondent take on the uniquely American issue of rampant school shootings told through the veil of speculative fiction.
I don’t blame anyone who wouldn’t want to watch these movies, especially The Long Walk and The School Duel, but fiction has always been how I’ve been able to process and analyze the horrors of the real world in a way that makes sense. If these kinds of ideas can’t be explored and defined in fiction, then there’s only the real world left to unleash them upon.
2025 is another dark year in what seems to be a never-ending onslaught of dark years. These three movies look to capture a particular anger about our current state and our frightening future.
I look forward to watching them all, because there is no way they will make me a fraction as miserable as I am when I look out my window.
