The Purge

Submission 10,677

About

The Purge is a dystopian horror film franchise based off the premise that for one night a year in America, all crime is legal. The films proved successful and were increasingly viewed as politically relevant, particularly with the release of The Purge: Election Year. As of July 2018, there are four films in the franchise.

History

The Purge was released on May 2nd, 2013 at the Stanley Film Festival and was released worldwide on June 7th of that year.^[1] It was written and directed by James DeMonaco and starred Ethan Hawke and Lena Heady. The film scored a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes but was a financial success, gaining $16.8 million on opening day and $34.1 million through the entire weekend, topping the box office charts.

After the success of the first film, the film had two sequels, The Purge: Anarchy (2014) and The Purge: Election Year (2016) (trailers shown below).

On July 4th, 2018, a prequel to the series, The First Purge, was released.

Reception

Though the first film received the lowest score on review-aggregate sites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the subsequent films received more popular reviews, with Anarchy, Election Year, and The First Purge receiving a score of 50, 55, and 55 respectively on the latter.^[2] The subsequent films were noted for their political commentary as opposed to the first film, which was regarded as more of a cliche horror film. Forbes^[3] called the original trilogy "the political satire of our time." Vox^[4] noted that each film tweaked the formula to best fit with relevant social issues. Speaking to Complex,^[9] sociologist Lester Andrist pointed out the film was making a heavy commentary on class and race, and said that were The Purge to happen in reality, most of society would band against it and it would not be as gruesome as the film imagines.

Online Presence

Online, The Purge franchise has 3.1 million likes on Facebook.^[5] While it does not have a dedicated Twitter account, the studio behind The First Purge, @UniversalHorror, has over 71,000 followers.^[6]

What Would You Do In The Purge?

One of the most common discussions online surrounding The Purge franchise centers around what one would do if all crime was legal for one night a year. After the release of The First Purge, The Verge^[7] posted a discussion amongst their editors about the topic. Jezebel^[8] made a similar article. Online, discussions about a real-life Purge have appeared on Quora,^[10] Cracked,^[11] and Buzzfeed,^[12] with commenters noting that a real-life Purge would likely be boring and tame compared to what the film portrays. In a sponsored post for The Purge: Anarchy, Buzzfeed collected humdrum activities people would participate in if a Purge were real (examples shown below).