The Purge: Election Year Review

5

The Purge franchise has one of the best concepts in mainstream horror. We would all love to see what would happen if crime was legal for a night and one of the biggest complaints coming out of the first Purge movie back in 2013 was that it totally wasted this concept, instead giving us a by the numbers home invasion thriller. The second Purge movie, The Purge:Anarchy, made good on the franchise’s promises, taking the battle onto the streets and shifting gears, becoming an out and out exploitation action movie.

Now once again it is time for our annual purge and this outing takes place, rather fittingly, during an election year. Elizabeth Mitchell plays Charlie Roan, a presidential candidate who having suffered at the hands of The Purge is running her campaign on a bid to put an end to the night. Her rival for the White House is Edwidge Owens, a man put in place by the new founding fathers to make sure The Purge is kept. In a bid to win over the public Owens lifts the Purge ban on all political bodies and there’s no prizes for guessing who becomes the night’s biggest target.

Returning to help Roan is Frank Grillo’s Leo Barnes, whilst they also receive support from a local shop owner and his friends and families who have been targeted during The Purge by a gang of local youths. The city has also been over run by murder tourists- people travelling from all over the globe to take part in the Purge. James DeMonaco has been at the helm of all three Purge movies and he continues to hone his craft with Election Year. The film is the most visceral of the series thus far, delivering a stylish exploitation thriller that at its heart has something to say as well.

Whilst the politics of Election Year are about as subtle as a sledgehammer and the dialogue at time borders on the laughable DeMonaco is comfortable in this genre and The Purge delivers plenty of bang for its buck. Several scenes, including one in a church and one outside of a convenience store are particular highlights, showing off The Purge in all it’s glory and giving us the exploitative shocks that we all wanted to see from this franchise.

There are two elections taking place in the US over the summer. One of them involves two overblown political stereotypes delivering hammy dialogue and making ridiculous claims about society, the other one takes place in The Purge: Election Year. This is the franchise’s best outing to date, a nasty and effective slice of exploitation cinema that keeps The Purge going strong.