A new political party called The New Founding Fathers of America (the clue is in the name) comes into power after the U.S. goes through a depression in their economy. Very soon they find that the country is back on an upward trajectory with the economy improving and unemployment hitting an all time low. Crime has also become almost non-existant. This is partly due to the party passing a new annual event called The Purge in which for one night all crime is legal and will not result in prosecution. Emergency services are suspended for the duration of The Purge. Because of this the crime rate for the rest of the year is also very low.
The Sandin family settle into their secured home for The Purge night hoping that it passes without incident. However, the boyfriend of their daughter Zoey who is forbidden from seeing her sneaks in before the house’s security system is activated and decides that tonight would be a good night to settle affairs with her father. The Sandin’s son Charlie sees a man desperately screaming for help on the houses CCTV system and decides that he can’t just leave the poor man out there and so disables the houses security system so that he can allow the man to enter their house rather than being left vulnerable on the street. This provokes a posse to come to the house to demand that the family turn over the man to them or they will be forced to enter the house themselves.
When I saw that this was a Platinum Dunes/Blumhouse film my heart sank. But, it’s actually a pretty solid and enjoyable film! There are elements that I don’t normally associate with films from these stables like, oh, suspense, intelligence, great acting and genuine scares.
Issues regarding law and order and the idea of bloodlust as a form of entertainment aren’t looked at to their fullest but I think that this works to the film’s benefit. In an era of films overanalysing any kind of statement regarding society or dumbing such issues down for their audiences, this is most welcome. It’s almost as if the filmmakers are crediting the audience with a modicum of intelligence. Which is nice.
The ending is just as abrupt as the end of the night itself but again I didn’t mind this. Theres no overlong and cloying ‘deep’ speeches given by characters about what they are going through/have been through. It gives the film an air of being akin to a short sharp shock which again, I quite liked. It was much preferable to MTV style philosophising.
The storyline regarding the vulnerable man being inside the house whilst others try to get in to kill him reminded me of the 1983 Canuxploitation masterpiece, Siege which is a much better film and is due to be released on Blu ray soon by Severin.
This is no masterpiece but it’s still a fun hour and a half and I’ve seen worse. Much much worse.
*** out of *****
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