Thoughts on movies, comic books, life, and other nonsense, by someone who should know better
To be fair, I only watched The Purge series because old friend, and fellow blogger, Glenn Miller (check out his blog My Little Underground, it’s great!) said the second one was decent. You can’t eat only one (right?), so in short order I’ve plowed through the series, culminating in last night’s viewing of The Purge: Election Year, and clearly the series has run out of steam.
I was going to say I’m not much of a fan of Eli Roth, but having only seen two of his movies prior to tonight’s viewing of The Green Inferno it would be ridiculous to do that. Having only seen Cabin Fever and Hostel, I approached this one with some baggage. On one hand I didn’t care for either of those movies, and on the other hand, I can’t say I’m a particular fan of mondo cinema either. I’m also particular about the genre of horror: gore isn’t enough; jump scares aren’t enough. That isn’t horror, it’s amateur Grand Guignol – where’s the excitement in seeing people killed off one by one? I don’t see it. I’m a character driven writer, and that’s what I look for in the movies I watch.
Having decided to sit through all three movies (so far) of The Purge franchise, I might as well get them out of the way in short order. Last night, after returning home from a night out with the wife, that included a trip to Best Buy to try Sony’s Playstation VR, I settled down to watch the second in the series: The Purge: Anarchy.
I, like a lot of people, dismissed Hardcore Henry from the trailers as probably too gimmicky to be worthwhile, so I didn’t bother going to see it. I also couldn’t stand the title. As well as that, I’m not much of a fan of the producer Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted) – no particular reason for that other than I haven’t enjoyed the movies of his I’ve seen. Months passed, and I had the chance to view a copy the other night. Feeling the need for a pallet cleanser from The Killing Joke travesty, I fired it up.
The Purge, written and directed by James DeMonaco, is a pretty silly premise – that for twelve hours one night of the week all crime including murder is legal (except for some notable exceptions, like some elected officials). The movie posits that at some time in the immediate future there’s a sweeping, drastic overhaul of the US Government, so that by 2022 crime has been significantly reduced by means of this annual release of pent up negative emotions, etc. It’s a horror movie premise that doesn’t have any root in reality whatsoever.
AT THE FOOTHILLS OF MADNESS 