The Purge: Election Year Is Still an Uncomfortably Timely Watch

The Purge series has never aimed for subtlety. Its examination of the agonies unleashed by an annual government-sanctioned night of crime without punishment—heavy on the gruesome murder—comes wrapped in broad messaging and involves not especially well-developed characters. Its appeal comes from trying to figure out who will survive the mayhem while marveling at how this extreme version of reality doesn’t feel too far off from our own.

And with five films and a TV show so far, The Purge‘s satirical portrait of a worst-case-scenario America has clearly struck a chord with audiences. While all the series entries offer commentary on certain themes (the wealth gap, racism, xenophobia), 2016’s entry took advantage of its timing to tap into a particularly pressing issue: election anxiety. Written and directed by franchise creator James DeMonaco, it hit theaters just before the Fourth of July, with a tagline (“Keep America Great”) that evoked Donald Trump’s campaign, though Ronald Reagan had also used a similar slogan decades prior—and it raked it in at the box office, in keeping with The Purge series’ tradition of reaping huge returns on relatively low-budget productions.

So it’s another election year, and while 2020’s event was no picnic, 2024 feels especially dystopian, doesn’t it? For the “good guy” characters in The Purge: Election Year, the impending election brings with it a glimmer of hope, since Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), a wild-card candidate, is starting to gain momentum with her promises of ending the gory tradition. She’s got personal motivation—as a young woman, she witnessed the slaughter of her entire family on Purge Night—as well as political; there are rumblings that the ruling party, the New Founding Fathers of America, have been “using the Purge to help their own economic agenda,” according to the TV news, the preferred way to exposition-dump throughout the movie.

The patently corrupt NFFA, overwhelmingly white, rich, and male, backs the leading candidate; he’s a pastor in their personal church, where money and power are worshiped beyond anything else. “Purge and purify” is their mantra, and they’re trying to “keep America great” by murdering anyone they deem unworthy. In Election Night, we dig deeper into this world’s well-organized resistance movement—a group that works to shield the most vulnerable citizens on Purge night, while strategizing their own violent solutions against oppression—led by recurring Purge character Bishop (Edwin Hodge).

While the thrust of Election Night sees various characters (including Frank Grillo’s Leo Barnes, another recurring character) trying to protect Roan from assassination—as soon as the Purge is underway, her carefully fortified panic room is breached by a mercenary group hired by the NFFA—we also get a glimpse of how the Purge has evolved. “Murder tourists,” including a group from Russia clad in ghoulish costumes that ape American patriotism (Uncle Sam, the Statue of Liberty), have proved to be an economic boom, and it’s now common for insurance companies to hike their Purge Night premiums to harm small business owners, including Joe (Mykelti Williamson), who’s having a hard enough time keeping his corner store safe from aggressive teens even on non-Purge days.

And, of course, there’s the horrific imagery sprinkled throughout—a blood-drenched Lincoln Memorial is particularly arresting—to go with the awful crimes that Purgers commit with gleeful entitlement. It’s meant to be shocking and exaggerated, but it also tugs at that part of your brain that wonders “Could this really happen?” and decides that yeah, given the state of things, it’s not as impossible sounding as it once was.

The Purge: Election Year ends with a flash-forward in which Roan, having insisted her political opponent’s life be spared on Purge Night so she could beat him fair and square at the ballot box, is elected. But even before America can exhale in relief at a Purge-free future, the TV news lets us know that NFFA isn’t going to go quietly, with violent protests already breaking out despite Roan’s landslide victory.

Is it weird for a movie that’s nearly a decade old to give off “too soon” vibes? Or is this a cautionary tale worth cycling back to every four years? You can rent or buy The Purge: Election Night on Amazon Prime Video and see for yourself.

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