The First Purge (Review)
The First Purge is the Worst Purge.
I’m man enough to admit that The Purge films are a guilty pleasure of mine. So much so that I was actually looking forward to seeing The First Purge. There’s just something terrifying about the whole premise of the series. What we’re capable of when no one is watching when there are no consequences for our actions. What darkness lurks in the hearts of man. It’s pretty twisted stuff. The First Purge though beats the underlying messages and themes of the franchise to death with such heavy hands that it’s hard to stomach.
As the franchise went on, it evolved into a series about the new way the wealthy and powerful were controlling the have-nots. It soon became evident that the entire purpose of having one night a year where all crime (including murder) wasn’t so much about providing America with a catharsis for all that bottled up anger, but instead it was used to eliminate the members of the lower class the fat cats in Washington were tired of supporting. It’s about cleansing the lower class from society. This dark and twisted revelation was subtly introduced in The Purge: Anarchy and then expanded upon later. The First Purge though takes this subtle, sickening element of the franchise and uses it like a soapbox to the point where it becomes a groan-worthy mess.
I’m pretty sure you can figure out what The First Purge is essentially about. The film takes place on Staten Island, which is being used as a micro experiment to see if the principal will work on a much larger scale. While the past films had heroes that the audience could easily identify with and cheer for, The First Purge features a condescending older sister (Lex Scott Davis from Superfly) and a small-time drug lord (Y’lan Noel) who come together trying to save their community. The problem is that it’s hard to get behind a man who has made a fortune selling drugs that ruin lives and lead to the creation of drug-addled psychopaths who joyfully join in the purge. Davis, on the other hand, comes off as a hypocrite as it’s revealed she did the very things that she so adamantly talks down to her younger brother about. These two are the first major stumble in The First Purge because without likable characters the audience is left rooting for the bad guys, there’s just one HUGE problem with it.
While The Purge movies have always used disturbing imagery in the forms of the masks that various characters wear in order to hide their identities while purging (I guess they just really get into the spirit of things), The First Purge takes things way too far. Director Gerard McMurray loads up the bad guys with racially motivated costumes. Everything from klan outfits to police uniforms to soldiers in “blackface” masks to a vinyl clad Nazi uniform fill the streets. It’s not only incredibly uncomfortable in all the wrong ways (I assume the thought was for it to be “edgy”), it only beats the message the film is trying to deliver even further into submission. It’s obvious from the get-go that the test on Staten Island is motivated not just because of the poverty level, but also because of the minorities that make up the vast majority of the population (at least on film). Instead of making a horror film that resonates with audiences and leaves them wondering about the implications of the violence they’ve just seen, it becomes a little too desperate to try to get it’s point across. Personally, I was almost insulted with how stupid McMurray treats the audience and his attempt at scary only manages to fall firmly within the realm of just plain inappropriate.
Worst of all is that The First Purge commits the cardinal sin of horror films (something we’ve seen before from Blumhouse this year). It’s not scary. There is a moment or two that might make you jump, but this is far from a scary movie. While the first few films in the series had characters running for their lives from very real threats, The First Purge turns the drug dealers into John Wick, effortlessly killing off mercenaries that do this kind of thing for a living. There are no stakes for the main characters in this film and that makes it painfully boring to watch.
Like I said, this franchise has been a guilty pleasure of mine to the point where I was actually excited to hear it was being adapted into a tv show. However, if The First Purge is any indication of where the series is going then I will not be tuning in to watch it at all. If you’re looking for a scary movie to watch, then you’re out of luck with this one. Better yet, if you’re looking for a good movie to watch, then you might as well wait for Ant-Man and The Wasp to hit theaters. Looking back on the film even now, I struggle to find one moment I actually enjoyed other than the relief I got from the credits starting to roll at the end.
