The Horror Show
The First Purge
by Gerard McMurray
It’s no secret that I’m a major fan of The Purge franchise. Needless to say, I was super stoked to see the latest installment in the series, a prequel entitled The First Purge. I know, super unique. All kidding aside, though, I really kept my expectations at midlevel for this one so that I a) wasn’t disappointed and b) might be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, with each new Purge film it seems the plot becomes increasingly political and not in a good way. I mean, I admire a great horror flick with relevant social commentary, but when the same nail keeps getting hammered it starts to become useless. So, unfortunately, even with my expectations not set high, I found myself a bit disappointed in this recent Blumhouse release.
With that being said, my disenchantment was in no way related to the actresses’ and actors’ performances in the film. Y’lan Noel brings a delightful campiness as the main bad boy turned hero, Dmitri, and Lex Scott Davis delivers a fierce performance in her role as heroine, Nya. The rest of the cast was on point as well, nailing witty one liners and entertaining from start to finish. However, even a competent cast can’t save what’s supposed to be a horror film worthy of the Purge title that fails to catch necessary attention right out of the gate.
The first forty minutes or so of the film are rather bland and dialogue heavy, focusing mainly on class warfare, poverty, racism, and dirty politics. This would be fine if it wasn’t marketed as a violent horror film. Sure, things get downright bloody and violent, but a bit too late into the film for me. This makes the points the film was attempting to drive home less important and more of an inconvenience. Not only that, but it was almost as if certain plot points from Anarchy and Election Year were regurgitated and spread all over the script. It could have been a strong film, if we hadn’t already seen this stuff a few times before in the franchise. It also doesn’t help that because this is a prequel, we know despite the characters’ best efforts their actions are meaningless as they’ve simply bought themselves 364 days until they’re forced to do it all over again.
In my opinion, The First Purge should have probably been the first film and the first film the second, then so on and so forth. Yeah, it’s an ordinary, safer way of doing things, but it would have broken up the monotony a bit and the events of this film and Election Year would have felt like we got a much bigger payoff.
Am I completely dissatisfied with this movie? Not at all. There’s nothing quite as rewarding as watching a muscly black man slice the throats of klan members with a machete. There’s something that rings true, though, in saying that if you’ve seen one Purge film, you’ve seen them all. Apparently, there’s a television show in the works, which makes me roll my eyes a bit, but I’ll still watch it. You know I will.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
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