Movie Review: The Purge: Election Year

The Purge franchise has had an interesting three-year history. I remember when the first trailer came out, almost everyone was excited by the concept. The idea of having any crime, including murder, being legal for 12 hours sounded like the perfect idea for a horror movie, but then everyone actually saw the movie. People complained that they took the interesting concept of the Purge and turned it into a standard home invasion flick. By the time I actually saw the movie, my expectations were so low I actually enjoyed the hell out of The Purge. I still believe it is an underrated horror movie, maybe not the movie everyone was expecting, but I still found it to be relatively scary and entertaining for a low budget horror film. The Purge: Anarchy came out the following year, and that seemed to be what everyone asked for. Seeing the actual Purge on the streets seemed to satisfy most audiences, but for me, the movie felt hollow. It was no longer scary or entertaining, but another example of grotesque torture being substituted for actual horror. The Purge: Election Year peaked my interest when it was announced, especially give the relevancy of the title and the plot. I was ready to be engrossed by the fictional Purge world, but it seems like the filmmakers had other intentions in mind.

Set two years after the events of Anarchy, Election Year follows senator Charlene Ronan (Elizabeth Mitchell), who is running for President with the belief that the Purge is harmful to America and needs to end. Members of the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) want to end her campaign and plan to kill her on the annual Purge night. The head of Ronan’s private security, Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo, reprising his role from Anarchy), is incredibly trained and dedicated to keeping Ronan alive so she can make actual changes for the country.

The idea of focusing a Purge movie on the political landscape of this futuristic America that is so similar to today’s America is pretty intriguing and shockingly ambitious. Most horror franchises stick to basic rehashes of previous installments so they can make them quick and cheap. That’s not the case with The Purge: Election Year as it has been two years since the last installment, (there was just one year between the first two), and it seems like they wanted to take the series in an interesting direction. That is all great and I am happy they decided to do that, but ultimately the final project is poorly executed and regrettably forgettable.

The film’s problems stem from the writing. This film is embarrassingly written and there is some truly awful dialogue. Most characters are paper thin and there are no real character arcs to be seen, which is not surprising for a horror film, but when the film is trying to provide commentary on real-world topics, it should be better written than this. There are some moments where the audience was laughing and I truly do not believe that was the filmmakers’ intent. Most of the story is predictable and told in a lazy way. There are no real surprises to be had and that can be blamed on how the film sets itself up.

Most horror films are able to get past the subpar writing and acting by actually being scary, the problem with The Purge: Election Year is that it’s not scary at all. The series has now turned into another violent, action stuffed franchise that does not know what it wants to be. This could be scary, but the filmmakers would rather show you some senseless action that is neither cool nor memorable.

Overall, The Purge: Election Year earns some points for being an ambitious attempt at taking a horror franchise in an interesting direction, but the execution is awful. The writing, characters, and action are all just bad. Nothing is memorable here and is actually somewhat boring, especially given the 105-minute runtime. In the end, The Purge: Election Year does not earn my vote.

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Scott Davis

Scott Davis is a recent graduate of Oakland University where he earned a degree in journalism. He worked for the student newspaper on campus, The Oakland Post, where he became the paper's managing editor. He also earned a minor in Cinema Studies at OU. Scott enjoys all things film and TV related, especially the blockbuster kind. He might be the biggest Christopher Nolan fan you know.

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