Horror movies these days are a joke. In the last few years or so, we've seen some of the most generic, cheap uninteresting horror movies, with a only a few breakout, legitimately good horror films in between, such as The Cabin in the Woods or Insidious or Sinister. However, I never give up on this genre completely, as I always try to look for the one horror film being released with a really interesting premise behind it. It seemed like The Purge was going to be that horror movie.
The film is set in a future where every year, for one day, an event called "The Purge" occurs. During "The Purge," crime is legal for 12 hours. You can murder, steal, and vandalize among other things. No emergency services will be available during these 12 hours. Because of this Purge, crime has gone down as well as unemployment rates. During this event, we follow the Sandin family, who has become very rich because the father, James (Ethan Hawke) sells security systems for people who want to protect themselves. On the night of the event, while he and his family are locked in for the night, his son (Max Burkholder) sees a man being chased and seeking shelter. Without hesitation, he lets the man into their home and soon after, the ones chasing him demand that James release the man so that they may "purge" themselves or else his family will be next.
Now, with that premise, you would think that the movie would expand on the idea that they have: a horror movie set in a world where crime is legal for one day. Maybe even come up with some clever backstory as to how this came to be or show some of the technology this world has (which they briefly do). Instead, what we get is a cheap, dumb, generic home invasion slasher flick. This movie had a really cool idea going for it but they squandered it for jump scares.
I will say that there are three good things the movie has going for it: Ethan Hawke is pretty good as the main lead. I like Ethan Hawke and he to me, he rarely gives a bad performance so I did not mind him here. I also thought the person who played the leader of the group of maniacs was effectively creepy (Rhys Wakefield I believe is his name). The audience I was with was definitely laughing at some of his lines. Me, I thought he was effectively creepy and menacing. Lena Headey, who plays Hawke's wife, is also good as well. She's got one big moment in the film that had the audience going in my theater.
Another thing I liked was the first 20 minutes of the film. The filmmakers manage to set up the premise very nicely, explaining what the annual Purge is and how everyone is just going about their business. It was very well done....too bad they don't expand on this but more on that later.
Those are where the positives stop though because there's so many negatives I have with this movie it's ridiculous.
First off, let's talk about Ethan Hawke's kids in the movie: these have got to be some of the dumbest kids I have seen in a horror movie, particularly the son. For example (and this is veering into brief spoilers here) but when the guy enters the house to escape and the family is hunting him down to give to the maniacs, the son ACTUALLY tries to help him by showing him a secret spot to hide, effectively putting his family in further danger. I'm sorry I know you're trying to help someone and protect a life but...why? You know your family's in danger of being killed so you just decide, "hmm, gee, you know what would be fun? Putting my family in even MORE danger by hiding the guy yeah THAT'S a good idea go me." I'm not saying that you should ever let an innocent person di that should never happen but I mean...these people were going to break into your home and kill you along with everyone else inside...why put them in further danger?
Also, why would Ethan Hawke's son have the code to disarming the entire house? Shouldn't Hawke be the only one that has the code? It makes more sense, he designed it so he should be the only one that has the code not let any of his kids have it so that they can essentially make the house more vulnerable. These two issues were just some of the many problems that I had with this movie.
Also, this movie is not scary. At all. Instead, we have cheap, stupid jump scares (like we're still doing the refrigerator and suddenly showing a face in front of the camera scares? Really we're still doing that?) It's just not scary, almost kind of boring really. Like there's no real tension to me in those scenes at all.
I think the biggest thing that pissed me off though was that they just had so much potential that was just flat out wasted on this movie . They had an idea that had not really been tackled before and could have had some intriguing ideas to go with it, but they squandered it in favor of cheap horror scares and just keeping it contained in one house. That's the other thing, they don't expand on this world enough. I would have liked to have seen what was going on in other states during this event, which they very briefly do. I would have liked to see what it's like outside the house not keep it contained to one home so you can have your home invasion movie. Also, there were a ton of unanswered questions I had throughout the film. The entire time I was thinking, "Who are the Founding Fathers, the ones who now control the government and set this in motion? How did we get to this point where The Annual Purge was introduced? What's going on outside the house? Is this sanctioned in other countries?" Things like that the filmmakers never expanded on which was frustrating when you have such a unique idea as this.
So overall, The Purge was just an extremely underwhelming and really stupid horror movie. They just had such a good idea going for them, one that hasn't been done yet and they throw that concept away in favor of a cheap home invasion movie.
Grade: D-
Seriously, Man of Steel just needs to come out now at this point.
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