I got to see a preview screening of the latest Stephen King adaptation and rather enjoyed it. But it’s also worth taking a look at why ‘murder competition’ fare like this and the recently concluded Squid Game get the green light (pun not intended), and why they’re so popular with the viewing audience.
It’s surprising how simple concepts can actually be turned into compelling viewing material if you’re willing to put in the effort. Take The Long Walk. 50 young men walking, and if they stop walking below a certain speed for too long, they’re dead. As the laconic title sums up: ‘Walk or Die’. If you want a film with such a thin narrative concept to have any significant impact on the audience, then you’ll need to put the emotional heft in with your central actors. Luckily, we’ve got Cooper Hoffman (goddamn this fella’s a carbon copy of his father. Heck, the resemblance is insane. I know genes and all that, but still. Heck) and David Jonsson to help us out as emotional anchor vessel guys. What they react to, we as the audience react to. And both actors put in stellar performances.
The film has been referred to as a satire by various critics, which makes sense considering the movie is directly based on the 1979 original work created by Richard Bachman, a pseudonym employed by an early era Stephen King. Many reviewers of the text also saw the text a criticism of the Vietnam War, while contemporary critics compare the filmic narrative to financial nihilism and such like. As with any narrative, we see what happens through the eye of the beholder, in this case, Hoffman’s – and Jonsson’s -. We’re forced to watch the unfolding horror through their eyes, whether it’s their traumatised facial expressions or the gruesome images of a boy being killed.
It’s this focus on the gruesome that has a propensity to slide off the satire scale and just fall into straight into that ‘gore for gore’s sake’ kind of category, where graphic imagery is just piled on to satisfy the audience’s internal lust for shock value and cheap thrills. Just a quick definition of satire provided by Master Google, for your viewing: ‘the use of humour, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticise people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues’. Director Francis Lawrence (yep, the guy that directed several Hunger Games films) seems pretty aware of this gore pitfall, with – noting early on that he’s afraid of seeing these horrifying images of death becoming a nullifying, casual occurrence. It’s just difficult to expect the satirical points making a significant impact on a commercial audience that’s largely here for the billing. You see a Stephen King adaptation, you’re probably going to go watch it. You see CH (Liquorice Pizza, ) and DJ (Rye Lane, Alien: Romulus), you’re going to go watch those emerging talents. The marketing team will put Stephen King’s name on the posters for reference to previous popular King adaptations (which they have done, with The Shawshank standing right up there as the golden goose), but they’re not going to put text on the poster like ‘based on Stephen King’s satire on the Vietnam war’, because most audience members don’t care about that, or the contemporary resonance that the narrative might hold today. They’re here to watch a film, and they’re compelled by that central murder competition concept (the participants are all being filmed for a live audience, even though we don’t see any viewers on the other side). That double-viewing mechanic of the audience watching a competition that’s being watched by an audience doesn’t have much of a satirical impact.
And it’s worth noting another joint that’s based around the concept of contestants being picked off one by one until there’s only one winner; Netflix’s most lucrative product to date, Squid Game, which reached its crescendo earlier this year. While the scathing satirical message about modern capitalist society exploiting the poor is definitely there (director Hwang Dong-hyuk explicitly referred to this idea), it’s probably not the main element that the show’s fanbase are here for. The fact that the show has been adapted into a real-life challenge show kind of boosts that theory. As with The Long Walk, central performances are an essential narrative hook (shout out to Lee Jung-jae) alongside a crazily imaginative, childish visual aesthetic that contrasts with the killings that take place across the various challenges. Besides the compelling production and incredible talent on display (and coming out in a similar period to other Korean big hitters like Parasite and Train to Busan), there’s something inherently entertaining about just watching a game show, especially with the added thrill of a fantastic element of ‘failed’ competitors being disqualified from the game in extreme fashion. At the end of the day, gore tends to work more effectively as a narrative device to grab audience attention than any underlying satirical implication, even if both can potentially be understood at the same time.
The gory ‘contestants get killed in a game show with a touch of satire’ has been a popular gimmick for a while now. Lawrence’s proved his mettle on dystopian fare like 12A Hunger Game films, even if they were more diluted films directed toward the young adult audience. But the gore will probably be making its way back around town later this year with the second Richard Bachman/Stephen King adaption The Running Man coming out, uh…running. And it’s Glen Powell taking over the acting reins this time, so let’s see if that draws in a decent crowd.
Hmm, did I go int much detail about what the title of this post says? Perhaps not. But still, it’s interesting to consider when satire crosses the border over to lazy slaughter territory. Goodbye for now (◠‿◠✿)