THE PURGE – Purged by its own potential
THE PURGE – Purged by its own potential
The Purge an American horror science-fiction thriller film directed and written by James DeMonaco. Starring Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, the film is set in the year 2022 when the United States has become “a nation reborn”, with crime and unemployment rates hitting an all-time low.
If on one night every year, you could commit any crime without facing consequences, what would you do? In The Purge, a speculative thriller that follows one family over the course of a single night, four people will be tested to see how far they will go to protect themselves when the vicious outside world breaks into their home. In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity-including murder-becomes legal. The police can’t be called. Hospitals suspend help. Its one night when the citizens regulate themselves without thought of punishment. On this night plagued by violence and an epidemic of crime, one family wrestles with the decision of who they will become when a stranger comes knocking.
When an intruder breaks into James Sandin’s (Ethan Hawke) gated community during the yearly lockdown, he begins a sequence of events that threatens to tear a family apart. Now, it is up to James, his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and their kids to make it through the night without turning into the monsters from whom they hide.
The film is slow in the uptake and as you meander gently downstream not much happens. The Sandin family are at home, having dinner before they lock down their house ahead of the 7pm sirens which sound the start of the purge.
The usual suspects are here, husband and wife in love and teenage angst in their son and daughter. She is the typical I’m 16 I can do what I want attitude and the young son doesn’t get as much attention as he craves. Blah blah blah.
As horror/thriller movies go it’s all sedate for a while then someone gets killed. The masked people come knocking at the door to ask for their purge victim back. The movie doesn’t move at a quick pace and the slowness of each scene doesn’t create any suspense at all, more like induces a slumber.
There is a bit of a quicker pace when things become a little more violent and sinister for all of 10 minutes and you think finally it’s living up to the hype and if it stays like this till the end then it holds a bit of hope of achieving more than three stars. I am afraid to say, it disappoints and slows again in pace and becomes even more predictable frame by frame as it gets closer to the climax.
Watching the trailers it looked like this film would have some real promise and be a hit of the summer, however sorry folks to dishearten but it’s a flop. The trailer had the best bits of the film, which sold it to us initially.
I wasn’t taken much by the remake of Evil Dead that came out earlier in 2013 – even that was better than this. The title of horror/scary movie of 2013 still rests firmly in the hands of Mama.
2 stars out of 5 – it only gets an extra star for the ten minutes of action/promise it showed.
I said as we left the cinema, I watch the rubbish films so you don’t have too! There are talks of a sequel, but it would need to be spectacular to make me want to see it.
This was produced by Jason Blum of Blumhouse (Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Sinister) – I think he is holding all the good stuff for Sinister Two, which is out soon! So hold onto your cash for that instead.
Review by Mark LEGOBear MacKenzie
