Viking Night: The Purge
By Bruce Hall
October 6, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I guess what I’m saying is, I liked The Purge. Quite a bit, actually. It’s a like with reservations, of course. I had a chance to review it back in 2013 when it opened the Stanley Film Festival. I couldn’t fit it in, but I won’t lie. The premise sounded silly and gratuitous, even for a horror film festival. We’re talking about an environment where Satan somehow comes up literally once every half hour.
But I’m the kind of guy who’s happy to give a movie credit for what it attempts rather than what it achieves - provided the effort is on screen. It’s why I like Tron. It’s why I like John Carpenter. And, it’s why I like The Purge. That’s not a direct comparison, of course. There’s just something inspiring about watching someone swing for the fence, and get to home plate just a hair too late. Not quite a champion, but still better than you - and yet still somehow relatable.
The Purge is a bit like that. It has some very compelling philosophical aspirations, which is the part that had me scratching a hole in my chin after the credits finished. And it has some fundamental flaws that weaken it, but without them there would be no story. I’m leaning toward this being a form of storytelling bias. I just don’t like the way the narrative is presented, but that that doesn’t make it “wrong”...right? Then again, I’ve written several hundred words and haven’t said a damn thing about what I saw.
Like I said, The Purge is kind of like that.
“The Purge” refers to an annual tradition practiced in Future America, circa 2022. After the complete social and economic collapse of American culture, a group of politicians called the New Founding Fathers takes control, and institutes an annual “celebration” called Purge Night. For 12 hours, any and all crimes are forgiven (actually, there are a few rules). Police and other emergency responders take the night off, and chaos is allowed to run rampant. Afterward, it’s straight back to business as usual.
For 364 and ½ days a year, you go to work, pay your taxes and stay out of trouble. But on Purge Night, if you want to go next door, obliterate your neighbor with a meat cleaver and have sex with his refrigerator, it’s one hundred percent A-OK. The idea is that by giving everyone a half-day to live like Rock Star/Serial Killers, they will be more inclined to behave the rest of the year. Naturally it works, and the crime rate hovers at about one percent. This is because The Purge takes place on a planet that’s about as much like our world as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
And that’s kind of the problem. Let me explain. James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a charismatic and successful salesman of home security systems. So successful, in fact, that he’s earned top honors for the year. He’s even hooked up nearly all of his neighbors with state-of-the-art, Purge-proof home security solutions. It’s been such a great year that he and his enchanting wife Mary (Lena Headey) have just finished an addition to their house. His son Charlie (Max Burkholder) is an adorably eccentric Old Soul. Daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) is surly and rebellious, but at least she comes home every night.
As far as James is concerned, he’s the luckiest man in the world. He plans to spend Purge night with his family, barricaded from the ugliness outside by the latest in Murder Deterrence technology. The best part of the film is the first act, where James does his best Ward Cleaver impression in a futile attempt to diffuse the meter-thick layer of tension The Purge has cast over his home. Television coverage of the event makes it obvious that the Festival everyone credits with saving society is, for some, little more than an excuse to prey on the most vulnerable members of society.
By relieving America of the poor, the homeless and anyone else who can’t afford to ride it out, Purge Night has revitalized America’s economy! But much like James’ family, there seems to be a national malaise brewing beneath the surface.
Think about it. If you have the means and the money, you can insulate yourself from Purge Night. And if you don’t, then you are entirely at the mercy of anyone less merciful than you. You think flat screen TV’s are cheap now? After three or four Purges, when the population of the United States has plummeted to 120 million, you’ll be able to buy 60 inch, 4K HDTVs in three packs, just like Lysol. What’s to keep Purge Night from eventually becoming a never ending, whirling dervish of vengeance and death?
Okay, maybe the main plot thread of the movie is as easy to swallow as day-old oatmeal - if taken literally. But the Purge is unsustainable madness. It’s nothing short of state sanctioned genocide.
Zoey is so distraught over it that she’s developed a smart mouth, and has taken up with older boys. Charlie is a bright and insightful boy who’s clearly been wrestling with this as long as he’s been able to understand English. He mournfully asks his parents what the point of it all is. James and Mary are clearly uncomfortable with the tradition, and do not want their kids to view them as savages. But it’s a grave social faux pas badmouth Purge Night, to the point where you’d think everyone’s house is being monitored. Plus, what can you do? It’s the way things are, and the Sandins are rich enough that they can turn their backs on it.
The interesting thing is that on some level they seem to understand this about each other, and the last family dinner they have before Lockdown actually goes pretty well. But of course, something has to go wrong – or it’d be a pretty short film. Using the home’s surveillance system, Bleeding Heart Charlie spots a badly injured Wanderer (Edwin Hodge) in the street, being pursued by an exceedingly Polite Mob. Out of compassion, Charlie lets the Wanderer in the house, enraging the Polite Leader (Rhys Wakefield). There’s some sort of unspoken, gentrified code of conduct among the well-to-do that compels the Polite Leader to issue James a deadline, after which they claim they can bypass the security system and storm the house.
The obvious irony here is that the very mechanisms and institutions James relied upon to avoid Purge Night have seemingly failed him. Now, he and his wife are forced to decide – in front of their children – just what side of the fence they’re on with this whole “Purge” thing. What I enjoyed about this is the not so subtle suggestion that the act of living within a community indebts one to it. And therefore, there IS no opting out. Considering the times in which we live, that’s certainly food for thought.
Unfortunately the real meat and potatoes of the story happen off-screen. The nature of allegory makes it critical to establish the rules of your universe as clearly as possible and preferably early on. What in the blue hell happened in America to make us all believe that the solution was a 12 hour, USDA approved Meatpocalypse? How, exactly, did we go from a moderately stable, representative based Republic to a thinly veiled fascist Thunderdome? What’s the deal with these New Founding Fathers? That seems like the real story here.
But for what it is, The Purge wrings as much as it can out of what it has to work with. It takes place (surely due to budget constraints) almost entirely in the Sandin home. It’s an absurdly huge monument to suburban self-indulgence whose driveway alone could swallow my townhouse. The symbolism is obvious, and the way the family struggles with it is equally clear. We’re all responsible for the society we live in, by virtue of the fact that we live IN it.
I get it. But as I watched, the world I was being asked to accept was so fundamentally and morally alien that without a fairer measure of backstory, I couldn’t get my mind off it. Nonetheless, I found myself deep in thought for a long time after watching.
But I can’t help but think that with more effective world-building, this might have been something truly groundbreaking, rather than just an interesting diversion on my way to the next borderline exploitation revival. There have been a couple of sequels – without Hawke and Headey – and they’ve done quite well. The Purge is a legitimate franchise. But thanks to that first missed opportunity, it’ll never quite reach it’s potential. Still, if you’re gonna swing for the fence, and you can’t quite round third in time, at least make it to home plate in that brief nanosecond AFTER the ball.
You know, when we can still at least salute you for your Purge.