Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Despite its incredibly high concept of an Annual Purge Night — a night in which all crime is legal, allowing citizens to take out their aggressions — The Purge franchise started out pretty low-key, with a home invasion thriller set in that world. With sequels Anarchy and Election Year, though, writer-director James DeMonaco has vastly expanded our exploration of this insane world, not only through the fictional terrors, but by increasingly turning up the heat on contemporary social and political issues. This isn’t just some apocalyptic horror story, it’s our apocalyptic horror story.
With its powerful “what if” scenario, sly socio-economical commentary, saddling of genres between action, thriller, and horror, and a framework with unlimited storytelling potential, The Purge has unexpectedly become one of the most smart, bold, and exciting new franchises in recent memory.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
Continuing on our month-long journey through political fare, we’re excited to cover the election classic The Candidate, starring Robert Redford. The film concerns a bold underdog Senatorial candidate agreeing to take on a popular incumbent in an unwinnable race. Written by an actual speechwriter for Senator Eugene McCarthy, the bold and insightful screenplay took home an Academy Award.
Sadly, Mr. Redford has just announced his intention to retire after a couple more films, but what a legacy! Join us in checking out The Candidate, streaming now on Amazon Prime, and send us your thoughts!
11/17 — The Candidate — Streaming on Amazon Prime Video
11/24 — Bulworth — Streaming on Netflix
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Featured Guest
Greg Dedrick is co-host of the Kansas City-based Nerds Of Nostalgia podcast, which covers all kinds of classic and contemporary pop culture including the hosting of live events and their own fan commentaries — but mostly has a soft spot for 80s movies. A couple weeks ago the guys recently teamed up with another podcast, The Media Rewind, to do a big old episode covering the entire Purge franchise. It’s a great listen and we recommend it as a nice chaser for this article.
Greg Dedrick:
Great genre entertainment can do two things simultaneously: entertain you and make you think. Now I’m not going to argue that The Purge franchise is high art but in today’s political climate it becomes more of a cautionary tale with each passing day. The Purge: Election Year continues the interesting concept put forward in the original and expands upon it. Specifically the idea of The Purge becoming a tourist attraction and bringing in people from all over the world to participate: it’s both equal parts sickening and brilliant. The idea of people travelling to America to legally kill says more about the world’s view of America because as one of the tourist says, “We will torture you and violate your flesh… This is the American way.” (@nonpodcast)
Our Guests
Brett Gallman:
Look, I’m not even going to pretend that these two cents are going to be solely about The Purge: Election Year. In the past 24 hours, America has handed the keys over to an absolute sociopath, a charlatan that millions of people voted for because he promised them something he’ll never deliver on; more importantly, he also promised to specifically exclude others. I’ve moved through bouts of anger, shock, disbelief, and absolute despair all day, to the point where it’s fair to wonder if trivial shit like movies even matter anymore. They do, of course, and the Purge series — as obvious and clumsy as it is — is evidence that some artists are acutely attuned to the world around them.
More than anything, James DeMonaco’s premise for this franchise — which has always seemed to be in search of a truly great movie completely worthy of it — at least taps into the overarching theme of this election cycle, if not American politics in general: a complete lack of empathy among many corners (nearly half of them, apparently) of this nation has grown toxic. When The Purge debuted just a few short years ago, its allegorical implications were clear enough, yet still felt like a hyperbolic extreme. Now, it just feels like a succinct reflection: this is not to say that we’re months away from an actual purge, but anyone who cast their vote for Donald Trump voted to purge the safety and well-being of minorities in America.
It’s no coincidence that DeMonaco explicitly drew this franchise along those lines, as beleaguered minorities find themselves at the mercy of a white ruling class that’s legalized the systematic destruction of those they’ve deemed undesirable. Given its release and subject matter, it’s not surprising that Election Year manages to be the most topical of the three, at least on the surface. An idealistic female senator taking on an evil, sadistic puppet makes for an obvious parallel, and her alliance with working-class families on Purge Night once again finds DeMonaco turning his premise into a soapbox, where he basically shouts what so many of us are thinking right now: “just how did we let it come to this?”
It’s completely on-point, but the events of the recent day make it more prescient than we could have imagined even a few months ago. In the film, the idealistic senator and her justifiably angry protectors face a moral quandary: do they stoop to the levels of her opposition and use the Purge as a justification for murdering her rival, thus ensuring her election? Or do they choose to go high when their opponents go low? It turns out that the idealism and moderation here anticipated the tenor of an election cycle dominated by ugly mudslinging above which only one side was willing to rise.
Unfortunately, that’s where the prescience ends: where Election Year posits that such idealism results in a nation coming to its senses and voting in everyone’s bests interests, reality has offered a stark rejoinder. Democrats played relatively nice, ignoring decades of evidence of the GOP’s willingness to play dirty. This time, they went as low as possible, and they won. It’s a far cry from DeMonaco’s strangely optimistic vision of a country that wakes up from its own nightmare. Just as this franchise seems to be at an end, our actual nightmare is just beginning, and I can only imagine just how pissed off any future Purge films might be (despite Election Year’s ending, there is, of course, an opening for a sequel), even if that’s the farthest thing from my mind right now. (@BrettGallman)
The Team
Ed:
At this point it is safe to say that I’m demonstrably more interested in the developments occurring in the Purge cinematic universe than I am in the Marvel one. This unapologetically R-rated thinking man’s schlock series has become a truly fascinating franchise, even if the second entry was far and away the best one. In many ways the opposite of the Marvel machine, the Purge films have all been written and directed by one creator, James DeMonaco. It’s a singular creative vision as opposed to a corporate one. And they’ve all been enormous hits at the box office almost because of how inexpensive they are to produce… something Marvel certainly can’t claim. Election Year takes DeMonaco’s far fetched concept of a future in which there are 12 hours of no holds barred free for all crime and brutality and mines it for political insight. It expands his original idea to a national stage, but also keeps things intimate by focusing on a handful of characters you enjoy spending time with (Frank Grillo forever). The Purge films are genius executions of a remarkably malleable concept applied to trashy tales I’d gladly continue to watch long after the Marvel train has derailed. (@Ed_Travis)
Justin:
This week has been a difficult one for many Americans. Privileged white Americans elected a cartoonish thug who ran an election on the foundation of a combination of populist ideals and hateful rhetoric. Within a day of being elected, the President-elect reiterated his intention to have all Muslim Americans forced to register, an obvious violation of religious rights and practice of neo-McCarthyism. In the past few days, the white supremacy movement has felt emboldened by the election results and has committed hateful acts nationwide. The reality of America is already becoming more and more frightening for minority populations.
The ills of a stratified society, class warfare, racial tension, these are the themes explored by The Purge: Election Year. The Purge series began with an interesting dystopian concept and a tight little home invasion thriller. Since that time, it has spawned two sequels, both stronger than the original film. And, with each film, it has gone deeper into these themes that are so applicable to what is happening in America right now.
The representation of hope in this film, Elizabeth Mitchell’s Senator Roan, is a Bernie-esque figure who is attacking the systems of the New Founding Fathers. Her message of change resonates with the people… which of course, makes her enemy #1 of the powers that be.
This rewatch of the film had my mind whirling, but ultimately it proved as entertaining a ride as it did when I first saw it. Frank Grillo is a goddammed action star in the making. The social commentary is effective. Can’t wait to see where they take the series from here. (@thepaintedman)
Austin:
The Purge has become a franchise that just keeps on giving, and its increasingly action-oriented delivery and biting satire has really turned into something of a contemporary phenomenon. Things are more on-the-nose than ever with the politically-themed Election Year clearly using the context of a controversial presidential election as story fodder. But moving beyond the obvious similarities, this resonates because it shows us the things that are already in our midst and on our minds — racism, inequality, economic problems, conflict, and fear — and uses those not only tdrive its story, but to tell us something about ourselves that we may not want to hear. (@VforVashaw)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!
Get it at Amazon:
The Purge: Election Year – [Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Instant]
Originally published at cinapse.co on November 11, 2016.