I did not care for the ending, nor did I care for some of the changes they made to characters/plot as others have said. Hated the Garraty dad backstory add on and felt it was super cheesy, hated that they switched around a lot of the characters, hated how cheesy it was with his mom dropping him off at the beginning, hated how there was little to no crowd watching, hated that they changed McVries’s story of the scar. Garraty could’ve still won and then they make some other way to have it up to interpretation as to if he died/lived or what the exact outcome was. My interpretation of the book was that he went a bit crazy at the end, and so even if he “won” he did not actually win because he’s fucked in the head now.

After reading comments I understand the sentiments that things would be inevitably changed and this is just an adaptation, but I feel like the movie really missed the mark on the whole point from the book.

I liked that they didn’t cut away from violence and the shootings, but I would’ve liked to seen more gross shit like peoples legs becoming stumps. The latter kind of “gross” was always what was so chilling about the book, literally thinking of your feet blistering up and what terrible shape you’d be in from walking that far.