Under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman, Stephen King wrote some of his darkest and most prophetic books - two of which have been released as movie adaptations this year.
It’s no surprise, really. At a time when authoritarianism, wealth inequality, AI deepfakes and content-consuming apathy are pervasive, stories like The Long Walk and The Running Man no longer feel like predictive sci-fi dystopias - more exaggerated reflections of a world gripped by powerlessness and anxiety.
That’s not to say Edgar Wright’s The Running Man is all doom and gloom - far from it, thankfully! It is, however, decidedly more faithful to King’s original vision than the campy Schwarzenegger-starring 1987 version (a film packed with cheesy one-liners, vigorous aerobics, and a bizarre baddie decked out like a helmeted Christmas tree.)
We begin in a 2025 where the United States is being run by a totalit
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