The Forever Purge (2021)

Director: Everardo Gout

Notable Cast: Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Will Patton, Cassidy Freeman, Veronica Falcon, Leven Rambin, Gregory Zaragoza

 

When the Saw franchise ran with the marketing gimmick of “if it’s Halloween, it’s Saw” because they essentially staked their claim to the holiday season before being dethroned by Paranormal Activity, they knew their drawing power. In the same vein, it is another Independence Day and that means it’s time for a bit of Purge. For this fifth installment, The Forever Purge, the series moves locales, adds a new voice in director Everardo Gout, and continues to embed heavy-handed social commentary within the confines of a genre exploitation heavy dose of street level chaos. As most reviewers seem to note, yes, The Forever Purge is quite a bit more of the same, but it injects just the right amount of fresh blood into the mix - making for another provocatively entertaining slab of genre cinema.

 

The First Purge (2018)

Director: Gerard McMurray

Notable Cast: Y’Lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Mugga, Christian Robinson, Lauren Velez, Kristen Solis, Marisa Tomei, Patch Darragh, Maria Rivera, Chyna Layne, Siya, Melonie Diaz, Mo McRae, Steve Harris

The Purge franchise, for all of its faults and flaws, remains one of the more intriguing genre series to come out in the last handful of years. It had a very silly (and quite frankly, awful) first entry, but its surprise box office success allowed writer and director James DeMonaco to embrace the outlandish socio-political commentary with a vigor that made the following two sequels, Anarchy and Election Year, genre pleasures for many fans. Love them or hate them, they made money and DeMonaco did an admirable job at delivering fun genre action while adding in a less than subtle commentary about the current state of politics in doing so. The problem that came to be is that the third film, Election Year, essentially wrapped up the series leaving a bit of room for expansion, but hardly paved the way for a full follow up. Thus, we got The First Purge, a prequel about the first ‘experiment’ on Staten Island that would allow the New Founding Fathers the information to push the Purge to the full country.