The Purge franchise has always had a weird relationship with its own concept. Like The Hunger Games and previous dystopian franchises, the Blumhouse horror series walks a thin line between damning its pervasive violence and glorifying the bloodshed. Nobody is basing their morals on a bunch of grindhouse movies (at least I hope not), but writer/director James DeMonaco has consistently gone out of his way to inject a moral and political core into these films, emphasizing the depravity and cruelty of the annual Purge. Murder is bad, purging is bad, and this is the road we're heading down as a society if we're not careful. It's one of those strange cases where the condemnation of the material is in conflict with the broad audience appeal of the whole thing. While you could make the case that people saw The Hunger Games for the characters, that's an impossible argument to make for this series. People watch these movies to see non-stop cinematic violence; in a way, we're as guilty as the Purgers.
I outright skipped the original Purge, but I found myself drawn to the sequels. Anarchy is gross and needlessly gruesome, but 2016's Election Year inched the series closer to a kind of brutal effectiveness as a low-budget allegory. Directed by Gerard McMurray and scripted by DeMonaco, this year's The First Purge obviously runs into many of the problems that plagued its predecessors. The familiar symptoms of this prequel include violence that sometimes dips into sickening territory, an unshakable feeling of shoddy direction and low production values, and a familiar framework that leaves little room for twists and turns. But four films into this series, DeMonaco has finally nailed the precise nature of the violence, turning this horror show into a pissed off, fired-up revenge fantasy rampage. While the series could have grown repetitive and conceptually dull over time, The First Purge is surprisingly the most successful of the bunch.
After showing us the grisly events of three Purges, this film takes us back to the beginning to see how it all started. The New Founding Fathers of America have risen to power due to hatred for Republicans and Democrats, and they're proposing a radical new plan to "save" the country. The pragmatic and psychologically-obsessed Dr. Updale (Marisa Tomei) has devised a new experiment, one that would make all crime legal for 12 hours in an effort to purge anger from the systems of the citizens. Staten Island has been chosen as the site of this grand test, and despite the urging of the ruling party, this newly minted Purge is controversial from the start. Well, maybe it doesn't help that the New Founding Fathers are paying people to participate.
As usual, there are regular people caught in the crossfire of these murderous events. Dmitri (Y'Ian Noel) is the gangster kingpin of the island, and he's doing everything he can to ensure that his men stay away from the festivities of the evening. At the same time, the savvy businessman wants to protect his ex-girlfriend, Nya (Lex Scott Davis), from what could happen when the sun goes down. Nya wants nothing to do with him, instead preferring to spend her Purge holed up in a church. But her brother (Joivan Wade), a foot soldier for Dmitri, has different plans, opting to release some of that anger. As the night progresses, the government grows increasingly desperate for this plan to work, putting more innocent people in unnecessary danger.
And if you've ever seen a Purge movie, you know what happens from here. These movies follow a very similar template, and The First Purge initially does little to subvert those expectations. Every one of these movies starts with a brief introduction to all the players, follows it up with a quick jump scare to let the audience know they're in for something spooky, and then finishes things off with the commencement of the evening's violence. Even as I watched this one, I couldn't help but wonder why the exposition in these films has to be so boring, so brutally flat and shockingly amateurish (there's a scene with some of the worst green screen I've ever seen in a studio-backed movie).
THE FINAL GRADE: B- (6.5/10)
Image: Universal/IMDb
Poster courtesy of Universal
I outright skipped the original Purge, but I found myself drawn to the sequels. Anarchy is gross and needlessly gruesome, but 2016's Election Year inched the series closer to a kind of brutal effectiveness as a low-budget allegory. Directed by Gerard McMurray and scripted by DeMonaco, this year's The First Purge obviously runs into many of the problems that plagued its predecessors. The familiar symptoms of this prequel include violence that sometimes dips into sickening territory, an unshakable feeling of shoddy direction and low production values, and a familiar framework that leaves little room for twists and turns. But four films into this series, DeMonaco has finally nailed the precise nature of the violence, turning this horror show into a pissed off, fired-up revenge fantasy rampage. While the series could have grown repetitive and conceptually dull over time, The First Purge is surprisingly the most successful of the bunch.
After showing us the grisly events of three Purges, this film takes us back to the beginning to see how it all started. The New Founding Fathers of America have risen to power due to hatred for Republicans and Democrats, and they're proposing a radical new plan to "save" the country. The pragmatic and psychologically-obsessed Dr. Updale (Marisa Tomei) has devised a new experiment, one that would make all crime legal for 12 hours in an effort to purge anger from the systems of the citizens. Staten Island has been chosen as the site of this grand test, and despite the urging of the ruling party, this newly minted Purge is controversial from the start. Well, maybe it doesn't help that the New Founding Fathers are paying people to participate.
As usual, there are regular people caught in the crossfire of these murderous events. Dmitri (Y'Ian Noel) is the gangster kingpin of the island, and he's doing everything he can to ensure that his men stay away from the festivities of the evening. At the same time, the savvy businessman wants to protect his ex-girlfriend, Nya (Lex Scott Davis), from what could happen when the sun goes down. Nya wants nothing to do with him, instead preferring to spend her Purge holed up in a church. But her brother (Joivan Wade), a foot soldier for Dmitri, has different plans, opting to release some of that anger. As the night progresses, the government grows increasingly desperate for this plan to work, putting more innocent people in unnecessary danger.
And if you've ever seen a Purge movie, you know what happens from here. These movies follow a very similar template, and The First Purge initially does little to subvert those expectations. Every one of these movies starts with a brief introduction to all the players, follows it up with a quick jump scare to let the audience know they're in for something spooky, and then finishes things off with the commencement of the evening's violence. Even as I watched this one, I couldn't help but wonder why the exposition in these films has to be so boring, so brutally flat and shockingly amateurish (there's a scene with some of the worst green screen I've ever seen in a studio-backed movie).
Of course, the chaos eventually arrives, livening things up and delivering non-stop carnage for an hour or so. I've never understood why the folks behind these movies feel compelled to fashion them horror movies, as it's clearly not a comfortable realm for any members of the creative team. The First Purge draws much of its horror from reality, and I look forward to reading some of the more critical takes on this aspect of the film. While McMurray and DeMonaco have crafted a topical and current slice of madness, it’s one that occasionally sinks into grueling cruelty. Do we really need to see a group of cops preparing to murder an African-American man? This is a fixture on the news- I don’t need to see it in a hyper-violent piece of popcorn entertainment.
Thankfully, for the first time in the history of this very new franchise, the filmmakers come to their senses. This should not be a series that derives its scares from violence- its violence should be used as a catharsis, as a vessel for the righteous and pervasive sense of anger that exists in 21st century America. With a badass leading man in Y’Ian Noel, McMurray fashions the climax of The First Purge as a revenge fantasy of the highest order, a bone-crunching, blood-splattered extended fight scene that features one black man dispatching an army of merciless government goons. Through this crowd-pleasing sequence of carnage, the film’s disturbing imagery and moral ambiguity are thrown to the wayside, opting for a clearer ethos than the series has ever had. There are good guys and bad guys, and it’s totally okay to enjoy watching the bad guys get slaughtered.
The First Purge mostly delivers familiarity and gruesome comfort food, but by giving viewers violence they can unreservedly enjoy while shoving popcorn in their face, it finally resolves the central conflict of this entire series. As Noel’s crime kingpin turned into a pseudo-John Wick in the final third, all of my prior reservations with this film and this franchise finally vanished. With an explicit social conscience and unambiguous violence, The First Purge succeeds where these other blood-soaked nightmares have failed.
Thankfully, for the first time in the history of this very new franchise, the filmmakers come to their senses. This should not be a series that derives its scares from violence- its violence should be used as a catharsis, as a vessel for the righteous and pervasive sense of anger that exists in 21st century America. With a badass leading man in Y’Ian Noel, McMurray fashions the climax of The First Purge as a revenge fantasy of the highest order, a bone-crunching, blood-splattered extended fight scene that features one black man dispatching an army of merciless government goons. Through this crowd-pleasing sequence of carnage, the film’s disturbing imagery and moral ambiguity are thrown to the wayside, opting for a clearer ethos than the series has ever had. There are good guys and bad guys, and it’s totally okay to enjoy watching the bad guys get slaughtered.
The First Purge mostly delivers familiarity and gruesome comfort food, but by giving viewers violence they can unreservedly enjoy while shoving popcorn in their face, it finally resolves the central conflict of this entire series. As Noel’s crime kingpin turned into a pseudo-John Wick in the final third, all of my prior reservations with this film and this franchise finally vanished. With an explicit social conscience and unambiguous violence, The First Purge succeeds where these other blood-soaked nightmares have failed.
Image: Universal/IMDb
Poster courtesy of Universal
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