The original Purge movie, which starred Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, introduced the franchise’s disturbing premise—that for one (fictional) night every year, all manner of crimes became legal. This means a scorned lover can exact a most terrible revenge, as we saw in The Purge: Anarchy, and some joyriding yuppies can terrorize a household, which is what drove the tension in the first film (which obliquely condemned Hawke’s security contractor character for profiting off people’s fears–and rage). Now the latest installment in the franchise, once titled Purge: The Island, is set to go back to the beginning to revisit the birth of the Purge. And it looks like it’s going to make a stop in MAGA territory.
New details have emerged about the film, now called The First Purge, thereby ditching the colons. Bloody Disgusting has the synopsis:
“To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the marginalized, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.”
That plot description doesn’t directly invoke the Trump train, but the first image does:
Seeing as The Purge: Election Year seemed to dismantle the practice of legally-sanctioned murder, Blumhouse and Purge creator James DeMonaco really had no place else to go but backwards. Still, the new film, which is Gerard McMurray, probably won’t lose too much resonance or relevance despite its trip to the past.
Blumhouse also announced a Purge TV series that will explore the effects of Purge Day on America the other 364 days of the year.