A totally dumb, prequel. No, really it’s dumb, but enjoyable mayhem while it lasts.
Damn. The First Purge, the fourth film in The Purge franchise takes the annual night of government sanctioned murder back to its boneheaded roots in a blaxploitation battle royale that’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer. So, no change there. And up and coming director Gerard McMurray, hot off his Sundance Film Festival nominated drama Black Sands (2017) helms the horror juggernaut that bumps and grinds on the edges of Trumpian social warfare before going full hack and slash mode on the impoverished streets of New York’s Staten Island. A handful of urban stereotypes – find themselves fighting masked Nazis in the Park Tower projects. A pulpy allegory of a divided America in 2018, perhaps… The Purge has always been a sharp-eyed concept, no doubt. But one that seems to continually squander its potential albeit entertainingly so.
Damn. The First Purge, the fourth film in The Purge franchise takes the annual night of government sanctioned murder back to its boneheaded roots in a blaxploitation battle royale that’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer. So, no change there. And up and coming director Gerard McMurray, hot off his Sundance Film Festival nominated drama Black Sands (2017) helms the horror juggernaut that bumps and grinds on the edges of Trumpian social warfare before going full hack and slash mode on the impoverished streets of New York’s Staten Island. A handful of urban stereotypes – find themselves fighting masked Nazis in the Park Tower projects. A pulpy allegory of a divided America in 2018, perhaps… The Purge has always been a sharp-eyed concept, no doubt. But one that seems to continually squander its potential albeit entertainingly so.
- 7/9/2018
- by Thomas Salmon
- The Cultural Post
Stars: Y’lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Marisa Tomei, Patch Darragh, Luna Lauren Velez, Kristen Solis, Rotimi Paul | Written by James DeMonaco | Directed by Gerard McMurray
With The Purge franchise, creator James DeMonaco has done the near impossible: develop and expand an implausible, high-concept idea into an engaging socio-political saga. Better still, he’s managed it without too much repetition. 2013’s The Purge was a simple home invasion horror; 2014’s Anarchy was a survival action movie with zombie movie tropes; and 2016’s Election Year was a broad allegory for the toxic state of American democracy in the run-up to the real-world presidential showdown. Now we are in the era of Trump, and DeMonaco – writer only this time, leaving directing duties to Burning Sands’ Gerard McMurray – has gone back to the creation of the Purge itself.
The concept of the Purge – for one night each year, all crime in...
With The Purge franchise, creator James DeMonaco has done the near impossible: develop and expand an implausible, high-concept idea into an engaging socio-political saga. Better still, he’s managed it without too much repetition. 2013’s The Purge was a simple home invasion horror; 2014’s Anarchy was a survival action movie with zombie movie tropes; and 2016’s Election Year was a broad allegory for the toxic state of American democracy in the run-up to the real-world presidential showdown. Now we are in the era of Trump, and DeMonaco – writer only this time, leaving directing duties to Burning Sands’ Gerard McMurray – has gone back to the creation of the Purge itself.
The concept of the Purge – for one night each year, all crime in...
- 7/6/2018
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
The bold marketing campaign for The First Purge, the fourth installment in the Purge franchise, satirizes the political climate in America, and has made it one of the most highly anticipated horror films of the summer. The First Purge is a prequel to the previous three films and tells the story of the origin of […]
The post Interview: Rotimi Paul on playing Skeletor in The First Purge appeared first on Dread Central.
The post Interview: Rotimi Paul on playing Skeletor in The First Purge appeared first on Dread Central.
- 7/4/2018
- by Michelle Swope
- DreadCentral.com
Stars: Y’lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Marisa Tomei, Patch Darragh, Luna Lauren Velez, Kristen Solis, Rotimi Paul | Written by James DeMonaco | Directed by Gerard McMurray
As the title indicates, the fourth movie in the Purge franchise is a prequel that depicts the events of the first ever Purge, an annual night of supposed societal catharsis where all crime is legal for 12 hours, including murder. The series showed its willingness to embrace political satire with its previous instalment (2016′s The Purge: Election Year), so you could be forgiven for expecting some hard-hitting social commentary this time round, especially given the current incumbent of the White House. However, while the film makes a number of nods in that direction, it falls short of deeper exploration, which feels like a missed opportunity.
Set in the not too distant future, the film begins with a new party, the New Founding Fathers of America,...
As the title indicates, the fourth movie in the Purge franchise is a prequel that depicts the events of the first ever Purge, an annual night of supposed societal catharsis where all crime is legal for 12 hours, including murder. The series showed its willingness to embrace political satire with its previous instalment (2016′s The Purge: Election Year), so you could be forgiven for expecting some hard-hitting social commentary this time round, especially given the current incumbent of the White House. However, while the film makes a number of nods in that direction, it falls short of deeper exploration, which feels like a missed opportunity.
Set in the not too distant future, the film begins with a new party, the New Founding Fathers of America,...
- 7/4/2018
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Chicago – I saw the original “The Purge” five years ago, but missed the other two installments. Let me say that nothing in the new prequel “The First Purge” makes me want to make up for lost time and catch up. The setup is the same… one night of legalized violence each year where the citizens are allowed to do whatever they want without the fear of prosecution.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
The Purge is dreamed up by a new political party – “The New Founding Fathers” – who seized both power and a social scientist. Trash that at least knows its trash can offer some guilty pleasures, but trash that believes it’s a serious minded social allegory, slipped into a cash grab prequel to a series of cheaply-made-but-highly-profitable exploitation films, well that’s almost too much to take… and “The First Purge” is that kind of trash.
“The First Purge” opens everywhere in on July 4th.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
The Purge is dreamed up by a new political party – “The New Founding Fathers” – who seized both power and a social scientist. Trash that at least knows its trash can offer some guilty pleasures, but trash that believes it’s a serious minded social allegory, slipped into a cash grab prequel to a series of cheaply-made-but-highly-profitable exploitation films, well that’s almost too much to take… and “The First Purge” is that kind of trash.
“The First Purge” opens everywhere in on July 4th.
- 7/3/2018
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
In “The First Purge,” the National Founding Fathers of America — they’re the kind of fascists who pretend not to be — launch an audacious (or maybe it’s just sick) experiment in state-controlled chaos: a 12-hour zone of anything-goes bedlam in which the crimes you commit, from petty theft to brutal murder, are all legal. It’s an experiment that treats the people who participate in it as human lab rats, and those who designed it have chosen what they believe to be the perfect homicidal playground: Staten Island, the least sexy and most self-contained borough of New York City, where the action is destined to cluster around the Park Hill Towers housing projects. If the experiment “works”, then the Nffa will take it national.
As the Purge begins, a cackling psychopath named Skeletor (Rotimi Paul), who has a shaved head, a crazed grin, a set of African tribal scars,...
As the Purge begins, a cackling psychopath named Skeletor (Rotimi Paul), who has a shaved head, a crazed grin, a set of African tribal scars,...
- 7/3/2018
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
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