By Drew Dietsch | publishing
Whenever the world gets dark, I find myself delving into dark science fiction, the commodification of the murder of humans in power. Among a wide audience, the framework that seems to be most digestible is to make this concept a game in science fiction.
You can exaggerate any example in any number of different media, but I found that there are three movies in 2025 that use this concept again to tell some potentially challenging and bleak stories, which is interesting.
Two of them happen to be an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, and the third one looks darker than the master’s horror.
Running man
The first one I want to pay attention to is Running maneven if it is released later this year, and King’s novel is being written later. Why? It has the greatest focus and budget in these three films. This means it is the most successful film and attracts the widest audience.
Running man Back in 1987, it was adapted into an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, but it was so far from the original material that the new film version made sense.
In the new movie and original novel, the protagonist Ben Richards is chosen to be on the game show, and he must avoid discovering in the world. This becomes a poor, desperate, failed person who just wants to make his children’s health care the ultimate goal and if he can win the game, he will have the perfect, life that provides.
It is a very obvious metaphor for the system where capitalist systems make us fight each other, so we don’t open up the rich. Edgar Wright’s new film seems to be embracing that social commentary, but it’s also sold with a high octane stimulus. I love films like this, and Wright’s dynamics brand, but I hope he’s willing to bring the film to some of the harsh and more shocking places in the novel.
Specifically, the ending of the novel. I hope you can read comprehension – now a reasonable focus – and don’t need warning labels about spoilers other than this sentence. In the novel, Ben takes a jet into the Olympic building while flipping the birds in the performance’s elite Schmucks. The novel is a dark comic, but 9/11 created the belief that no movie version turns this image into one of the hero’s contempts.
If Wright’s film does go there and adapts to the end of the novel in some recognizable form, it could be one of the most controversial topics in the film this year. I won’t hold my breath, we’ll see this happen, but it’s undeniable that another Stephen King movie this year will be inevitable.
A long walk
A long walk It’s my favorite Stephen King novel after that, it’s about the weird clown. Fans have been waiting for the movie version A long walk For decades. After several stagnant attempts, we finally got a feature film of a deadly game that sacrifices children from all over the country in the name of nationalism.
If it sounds like Hunger Games It’s no surprise for some of you that it’s the main director of Francis Lawrence who is the supervisor behind the camera. A long walk. In a sense, this seems to be something Lawrence seeking for a more cruel and fatalistic thing in this kind of science fiction story.
I’m very happy A long walk Finally turned into a movie, it seems to be trying its best to commemorate Kim’s novel. Mark Hamill is always a welcome presence and throws him away because the fascist villain is great and I can’t wait to see that show.
But I hope it’s not only that A long walk It is indeed challenging the audience with cruel descriptions of armed soldiers who murder children, and the indifference that the fascist government allows these children to die for our entertainment and false nations.
Then, there is another movie you might not know that this is the real Donner.
School showdown
School showdown It is an independent film written and directed by Todd Wiseman Jr., which proposes a near-future United States where gun control has been abolished and school shootings have risen to unprecedented levels. The government’s response is a statewide competition where children sign up to kill each other to eliminate the most violent students.
Rather than doing anything to curb actual gun violence, School showdown With a mental illness American solution, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some people in the real world trying to justify it.
Shoot with appropriate black and white, School showdown Of these listed movies, this is the bravest idea. Apparently, it is a very angry and frustrating thing to tell the unique school shooting in the United States through the Veil of Speculative Novels.
I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to watch these movies, especially A long walk and School showdownbut novels have always been the way I can handle and analyze the horrors of the real world in meaningful ways. If such ideas cannot be explored and defined in novels, then only the real world can release them.
2025, this seems to be a never-ending year for the Dark Ages. These three films are designed to attract special anger at our current state and our fearsome future.
I look forward to all the viewings because they will never make me feel as painful as I look out the window.
