I sat down, alone in the dark, with the rare opportunity of not knowing what I was about to see. All that I knew was that it was a Steven King book of young men walking in a dystopian march; and that Mark Hamill offered to take cast mates out for lunch, but was declined because they wanted to keep their reactions to the Major honest for the project.

This was not an easy watch for a day off, however I feel this is a valuable watch even on a holiday.

Perhaps my own mind has been stuck oscillating between the bleak and harsh reality and the charmed optimism of childhoods abounding. Watching the natural cycle of growth and decay around us, we can easily lose our story-line or personal through-lines. Thus the compulsion for art, ergo my curious bout of inspiration comes from the dystopian Long Walk.

This is a story of 50 men “winning” the opportunity to participate in the widely popular and watched sport past-time, The Long Walk across a desolate looking United States, eliminated one by one for slowing down or stopping. Yet for an event so popular, the band of men are oddly isolated against melancholy 1970’s Americana. Here there is nothing more popular in Panam, uh I mean America, as all sports have been cancelled. All media is monitored, books banned, thoughts of free thinking squashed when uncovered.

What you sit through is an agonizing hour and forty minutes of humanity: good, bad and ugly. It is visceral and churns the stomach. (I really should not have grabbed the large popcorn. Not the right show.) Yet the fascist hellscape makes a significant point: when stripped of expression and optimism, the struggle to be the last man standing in a maddening march is oddly gripping. How can you not choose sides for characters, despite they are all subject to this cruelty for broadcasted sport?

It is a look into how easy it is to dehumanize and mock each other for the chance of getting an advantage over someone. Then there is the glaring warning, which was present even in the 1970’s book with King’s pen name Richard Bachman, that the largest struggle is against the system itself.

When dread sets into the contestants as they finally understand the stakes with the first death, there is a familiar sense of normalization at the surrounding brutality. It doesn’t matter who slows down nor why. The elimination is inevitable. How they each choose to approach elimination is the difference.

So, if you have the stomach for it, I would highly suggest The Long Walk before it leaves the theaters. Character driven and dialogue heavy, it is a focused look at forced dehumanization. This is an important watch with significant undertones. And again, I want to stress that this book first came out in ’79, and there are Amazon reviews dating back to 2007. The haunting element is from the Vietnam war, now hovering over the shoulders of a new generation of actors.

I cannot stress enough how strong this cast is together. While Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are the heavy hitters from the start, there are too many names to highlight. Wareing, Nyuot, Plummer, Wang, Gonzalez, Odjick, Davis, Wrightly, Giffin, Mpumlwana, Lehmann, and Neri are all so distinct while capturing a horrific and ugly story.

It’s made to be ugly, and dammit, we need to remember what ugly looks like. In order to understand and appreciate the beauty and awe of growth, we need to remember what darkness looks like; then we need to remember who can help us through those dark times.

So even if you are the lone person in a dark room, there is still a light flickering, giving hints of what the next steps might look like, even if you feel yourself stumbling forward.