the purge movie review

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Home invasion movie has intense ideas, strong violence.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The messages in this movie occupy complex gray are

Most of the characters are simply meant to illustr

The movie starts off with surveillance footage of

Two teens are shown kissing and engaging in "

Language is fairly infrequent but contains strong

Adults drink glasses of wine with dinner.

Parents need to know that The Purge is a futuristic sci-fi/horror movie with a horrific idea: Once a year, American citizens are given a 12-hour period in which they can do whatever they want -- including murder -- legally. This supposedly has the effect of reducing crime and lowering unemployment. Violence…

Positive Messages

Positive role models, violence & scariness.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Purge is a futuristic sci-fi/horror movie with a horrific idea: Once a year, American citizens are given a 12-hour period in which they can do whatever they want -- including murder -- legally. This supposedly has the effect of reducing crime and lowering unemployment. Violence is strong throughougt the movie, with various beatings, stabbings, and shootings, with lots of dead bodies (including teens) and a fair amount of blood. Language includes a few uses of "f--k" and other strong words, and a teen couple is shown making out and getting a bit hot and heavy. The movie may inspire discussion about human nature, mob mentality, the function of society, consumerism, exploitation, the rich and the poor, and other hot topics. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (28)
• Kids say (169)

Based on 28 parent reviews

Genius horror film has disturbing violence and some strong language

13+ for several reasons. see below, what's the story.

In the year 2022, the U.S. government has established THE PURGE, an annual 12-hour period during which citizens can do whatever they want, legally, even murder. James Sandin ( Ethan Hawke ) has made tons of money selling security systems to the wealthy, and as the purge begins, he prepares to barricade himself inside with his wife Mary ( Lena Headey ) and kids, Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and Charlie (Max Burkholder). Unfortunately, Zoey's boyfriend has snuck in just before lockdown, and Charlie tries to help a homeless man by letting him in, too. These small events eventually lead to a terrifying standoff: James must decide whether to sacrifice one man to save himself and his family or fight and face certain death.

Is It Any Good?

The movie has a fascinating premise, but it's too dark for most teens, especially younger ones. Writer/director James DeMonaco, who previously wrote the screenplays for The Negotiator and the remake of Assault on Precinct 13 , adds a new wrinkle to the "home invasion" subgenre here. His idea of the futuristic "purge" brings up many layers of ideas worth discussing. The Purge is clever enough to begin asking these questions right away and to make the audience implicit in the discourse. It's impossible to watch and not wonder, "What would I do?" and "Is this right or wrong?" Or, worse, "What if it's a little of both?"

The movie isn't quite as clever at its story and character level. The typical cat-and-mouse chases around the house rely on characters never looking in the right place at the right time, and it becomes clear that they're more important to the movie as representations than as sympathetic characters. Only Rhys Wakefield as a strangely polite, intelligent, grinning invader provides anything of human interest. Regardless, a movie this smart and ambitious isn't easy to dismiss.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Purge 's strong violence . Is the violence necessary to express the movie's point? Could it have been less violent? More violent?

What do you think of the idea of "the purge"? Would it really lower crime and lessen poverty? What other issues does it bring up?

What's the movie's perspective on business? The rich and poor? What reaction do you think the filmmakers expect from viewers?

Should Charlie have let in the man calling for help? Why is his good deed punished?

Movie Details

• In theaters : June 7, 2013
• On DVD or streaming : October 8, 2013
• Cast : Ethan Hawke , Lena Headey , Rhys Wakefield
• Director : James DeMonaco
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 85 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong disturbing violence and some language
• Last updated : February 18, 2024

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Movie Review

Review: ‘The Purge,’ Starring Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey

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By Manohla Dargis

• June 6, 2013

Human sacrifice is a reliable crowd pleaser, from the myth of the Minotaur to Shirley Jackson’s short-story shocker “The Lottery,” the Japanese film “ Battle Royale ,” the book (and now movie series) “The Hunger Games” and the television reality show “The Voice.” This week’s big-screen oblation, “The Purge,” revisits that old sacral feeling, updates it with agitated camerawork and seasons it with the vaguest suggestion of politics — and then lets it rip with machine guns, machetes and Manson Family-style gigglers in fright masks. Ain’t we got fun?

For most of its first hour, “The Purge” isn’t exactly an evening’s elevating entertainment, but it effectively creeps under the skin. It’s 2022 and James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), a high-performing employee at a security firm, is rolling through the entrance of his gated community in a fine mood. He has just been anointed his company’s top salesman, good news tempered by the fact that tonight brings the annual Purge, the 12-hour national holiday during which Americans are legally absolved from every crime, including homicide and, presumably, insider trading. Since some crimes are more spectacular than others, more ready-made for big-screen consumption, this yearly national bloodletting appears limited to more familiar, more obvious police-blotter offenses: murder, beatings, more murder.

The time stamp announces that this is the future; that it’s also a dystopia is evident from the regressive image of James’s wife, Mary (Lena Headey), fussing about in a skirt and heels like a 1950s television handmaid. James, meanwhile, plays the caring father, sitting down to supper with his family (dinner, and then the show) in a scene with his children, Charlie (Max Burkholder), and Zoey (Adelaide Kane), that establishes his loving paterfamilias bona fides. There’s a distinct, daddy-knows-best whiff to this tableau that’s underscored when a TV announcer bleats about the New Founding Fathers, God and America just before the Emergency Broadcast System kicks in. James mans the alarms and the gates roll down, securing the windows and doors as if home were a prison.

That’s the unsubtle message, or rather just one of several such blunt, bludgeoning ideas that the writer and director James DeMonaco tucks into “The Purge.” Some introductory text suggests the political stakes, however blurred: unemployment is at 1 percent, crime is nearly nonexistent and it’s Morning in America (again): cue the smiling faces, fluttering flags and some pacifying notes from Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” The movie doesn’t directly point fingers at political conservatives, but Mr. DeMonaco deploys the satire about God ’n’ Guns with such cumulative heavy handedness, that the target, so to speak, becomes obvious. (The emblem of the New Founding Fathers looks a lot like one for the National Rifle Association, complete with a gun-toting eagle.)

The message just gets louder and louder, cruder and cruder, which is too bad because Mr. DeMonaco knows how to set a stage. The banality of James and Mary’s milieu initially brings to mind the opening of Jackson’s “ Lottery ” (1948), in which the ritual bloodletting (ostensibly for harvest) is compared to civic activities like “square dances, the teenage club, the Halloween program.”

Once lockdown commences, however, Mr. DeMonaco quickly loses his grip on the ever-more blood-slicked material. Out come the guns and in come the villains, inner and outer. A symbol of collective callousness emerges in the form of a sacrificial black man (Edwin Hodge as the Bloody Stranger), an Everyman lifted wholesale from George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” if without the powerhouse effect.

“The Purge” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Wholesale slaughter.

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Movie Reviews

A yearly 'purge' for a society working out its issues.

Ian Buckwalter

Ethan Hawke's security consultant barricades himself in his home for the annual "purge" that keeps the grimmer elements of society in check in James DeMonaco's dystopian thriller. Daniel McFadden/Universal Pictures hide caption

• Director: James DeMonaco
• Genre: Thriller, Horror, Dystopian Sci-Fi
• Running Time: 85 minutes

Rated R for strong disturbing violence and some language.

With: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey

Watch Clips

'This Night Saved Our Country'

Credit: Universal Pictures

'Please Just Let Us Purge'

'I Have Another Idea'

The best twists in The Twilight Zone weren't the ones that came at the end. The real genius of Rod Serling's classic series was how often and how effectively it twisted things up with simple but outlandish "What if?" queries in episode setups.

These skewed perspectives on the everyday fed into the splashy twists at the end, but they were also what so often kept the show from being a one-trick pony. What if your daily commute suddenly offered you an exit to a simpler place where you could escape your troubles? What if you found yourself alone and trapped in a town that looks familiar — in which everything is fake?

The Purge, the sophomore directorial effort from writer-director James DeMonaco, follows just such an initial template: What if, in the near future, the government was to set aside 12 hours out of every year where the law doesn't exist?

There's a rationale: In this scenario, crime has plummeted and unemployment is at 1 percent because — the government says — it has allowed people to "purge" their inner demons by indulging their baser natures for one night of the year. During that night, people may commit assaults, murders or any other crime they like without interference from police or emergency medical services, and without later prosecution, so that they can live happy, well-adjusted lives the rest of the year. It's like gestalt therapy with Berettas instead of bataka bats.

James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a man who has benefited greatly from The Purge: He sells home-security systems, and the nation's rich spend thousands of dollars making sure their houses are impenetrable fortresses. When it comes time for lockdown, the haves are shielded from any have-nots who might come knocking, while chaos reigns on the streets.

Of course, human weakness is the greatest vulnerability of any fortress, and through an unlikely confluence of emotion-driven miscalculations, the Sandins — James, his wife, Mary ( Game of Thrones' Lena Headey), and their two teenage children — wind up with two unexpected guests in the house after lockdown, and an angry mob outside calling for one of them to be tossed back out.

The coincidences necessary to reach this state of affairs will require more suspension of disbelief than may be comfortable for even the most accommodating. Then again, so does that initial premise: DeMonaco, like Serling before him, is asking for buy-in on an unlikely-to-impossible world for his own allegorical purposes. If you're willing to swallow that first one, you might as well just keep going with it.

And it turns out there is an undercurrent of social commentary at work here. The director uses his premise to examine class warfare as a literal construct — and not just with the Sandins and their rich neighbors snug in their homes, hatches battened against the mayhem and the potential envious retribution of the poor. The rich in DeMonaco's film also go sport-hunting for the disadvantaged, the homeless, the defenseless. This is a most dangerous game, with the 1 percent going after the 99 with weapons far more immediately fatal than predatory lending. (Suddenly those low crime and unemployment statistics look a little different, no?)

But the film doesn't handle those elements so elegantly, often coming right out and articulating the issues via news broadcasts or on-the-nose conversations. One hurdle is that while The Twilight Zone was social commentary dressed up as horror, sci-fi or thrills, The Purge is mostly a genre picture trying to layer on some prestige by way of social commentary. The latter falls flat; the film is actually stronger when it just goes for our baser instincts.

And as a tense thriller, it works. The family has enough depth and moral complexity — some roiling internal conflict about profiteering on such a grim tradition will eventually emerge in James — for the stakes to be as high as necessary. Meanwhile the story's villains are suitably creepy, masked figures acting with the self-righteous fervor of psychopathic cultists.

Where the film departs from the traditions informing it is in favoring tense, violent action and horror set-pieces over its more cerebral elements. The standout scenes involve dark, nerve-jangling games of cat-and-mouse in the house, including a nicely choreographed siege in a fully decked-out rec room, where Hawke takes on a host of intruders armed mostly with his pool table and pinball machine.

If DeMonaco was aiming any higher than gut level with The Purge , then he has missed the mark. On the other hand, he has carved himself out an hour and a half in which maybe that's not a crime.

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The Purge – review

James DeMonaco's violent thriller is set in a future America, where the New Pilgrim Fathers have brought a drastic reduction in crime rates by introducing an annual "purge" from 7pm to 7am one day each year. During those 12 hours, you can commit any crime, including rape and murder, with impunity, but is it good, old-fashioned catharsis or an excuse to practise genocide on minorities or euthanasia on the poor who are unprotected?

The film begins with smug Ethan Hawke returning to his family mansion, on the eve of lockdown for the Purge Night of 21 March 2020. We know he, his wife and two children are going to be in mortal danger because he's paid for his extension with money made from selling security systems that cater for everything except "the worst-case scenario".

The tension is well sustained and the film is an effective, predictable cross between Assault on Precinct 13 (the remake of which DeMonaco scripted) and Funny Games (the fair-haired preppy leader of the sinister besiegers is a dead ringer for one of the psychopathic kids in Michael Haneke's film). But it's an excuse for a great deal of blood-letting rather than an occasion for ethical or political reflection.

The conclusion suggests that in most circumstances most people will act with extreme moral turpitude.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Drama , Horror , Mystery/Suspense , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• June 7, 2013
• Ethan Hawke as James Sandin; Lena Headey as Mary Sandin; Max Burkholder as Charlie Sandin; Adelaide Kane as Zoey Sandin; Edwin Hodge as Bloody Stranger; Rhys Wakefield as Polite Stranger; Tony Oller as Henry

Home Release Date

• October 8, 2013
• James DeMonaco

Distributor

• Universal Pictures

Movie Review

“I could just kill ’em!”

Some of us might exasperatedly think that about our bosses, our employees, the guy who cuts us off on the highway, sometimes even our own family members. We don’t really mean it, of course. Not really. But what if we did? And what if society—our government—gave us permission to act on any sociopathic tendency we might have?

Just ask James Sandin. Because that’s reality in his world. Something called the Purge was instituted several years ago by America’s “new founding fathers” as a way to temporarily rid ourselves of our most forbidden, antisocial desires. Deep down, we’re all animals, they say: We need a night of primal release where we can go anywhere and do anything. And so for 12 hours every year, the rule of law is suspended and the primal floodgates are opened. People can assault, rob, beat and kill with no worry of repercussion. For one night, we can be the beasts we are.

If you don’t want to kill, that’s fine—but you better hunker down somewhere safe, because your neighbor just might.

No surprise, then, that the Purge sparked tremendous growth in high-tech security systems for the well-to-do. James sells such systems. And as a result, he’s made a nice, comfortable life for his family: huge house, luxury cars, maybe even a boat one day. And, of course, it’s all protected by one of those state-of-the-art security systems he sells. On Purge Night, all he has to do is push a button, and bam! His whole hacienda is protected by candid cameras and metal barriers.

“We’ll be fine, like always,” he tells his loved ones. The Purge is like any other night … only with more screams outside.

Thus, on Purge Night 2022, the Sandins are locked down tight. And as James does some paperwork, wife Mary runs on the treadmill, teen daughter Zoey secretly makes out with her boyfriend, and sensitive son Charlie checks out the home’s monitoring screens.

He sees someone in trouble outside. An injured man, calling—pleading—for help.

Positive Elements

The Purge in The Purge is reputed to be a societal good—the reason why the country is in such great shape. “The denial of our true selves is the problem,” a doctor says during an interview. Sometimes, he suggests, we all need to just cut loose and kill a little. Opponents suggest that the whole “catharsis” theory is really a ruse, though, that this yearly night of mayhem may simply be a way to rid society of much of its poor and unproductive populace. Troublemakers kill one another, they say, and the homeless and jobless are slaughtered like sheep.

Either way, the morality behind the Purge is clearly problematic. But the movie is trying to make exactly that point. And even though most of the Sandin family supports the Purge at first (every patriotic American, it’s suggested, does), they come face-to-face with its true horror when it slides into their living room.

It slides inside when Charlie lets the injured man in. And when a group of young would-be-killers demand that the Sandins boot him back outside or face fatal consequences, James at first wants to acquiesce. “It’s him or us, Charlie,” he says. But one by one, the horror of what they’re about to do hits each family member. “Look at this man!” Mary hollers at James. “Look at what we’re doing to him!” James does, and has a change of heart: They can’t send a guy out to be brutally murdered, he decides. Instead, they’ll have to fight off the invaders as best they can—even if it means they’ll all die in the process.

It’s the right decision, though a difficult one. And in the midst of that hard choice, James fights admirably to protect his wife and children. Of course Charlie did the humane, Good Samaritan thing when he initially disarms the system and brings the hurt guy inside. And aside from the consideration that he disobeyed his dad by doing so, he can’t really be blamed for their present crisis. And that stranger does his part, too. Most everyone trapped in that lovely house, in fact, chooses to save lives—even as the movie’s conceit also forces them to take more than their fair share.

Spiritual Elements

The Purge is spoken of as a patriotic duty, and participants talk about it in the reverent tones of a religious rite. “Your soul has been cleansed,” one assailant tells a dying man, kissing him on the head like a priest. “We’ll be better people,” someone else solemnly intones later, “and you will sacrifice yourselves to make the world a better place.”

It would also seem that America’s current leaders are treated as quasi-divine figures. “Bless our new founding fathers,” we hear a television announcer say (a petition repeated by others). The announcer concludes with, “May God be with you all.” And when several Purge participants prepare to kill innocents, they recite, in unison, something that straddles the line between a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sexual Content

Underage Zoey is sexually involved with her 18-year-old boyfriend Henry. We see the two of them kiss often and make out twice, once in Zoey’s bedroom as Henry lies between the girl’s legs, her blouse partly unbuttoned, revealing the bra underneath.

When assailants enter the house, one sees Zoey’s picture and says she’s “exquisite,” asking his henchman to “save” her for him. Two assailants—both in female masks—mime a kiss in front of a video camera. Zoey jokes about penis sizes.

Violent Content

The movie opens with a cacophony of clips showcasing the atrocities committed during previous Purges. Most of the footage is shot with what appear to be stationary security cameras, lending an aura of authenticity to the events. We see people shot, knifed and brutally beaten—pummeled, kicked and smashed with a variety of implements. Desperate people are pulled off blood-stained walls. Bodies litter the ground.

Once the plot starts cranking away, the high body count careens from violent but PG-13-style takedowns to gory R-rated viscera. We see both living and dead bodies covered in blood. Someone’s killed by an ax to the back. Someone else is stabbed in the gut, and we see the assailant slowly and painfully draw the knife out of its human sheath. Would-be killers have their heads pounded into antique pinball machines or repeatedly knocked against floors. A woman is bludgeoned with a gun, then has her face slammed into a table—breaking her nose. (Blood gushes lazily down her cheeks and over her mouth.)

James, in an effort to make his injured “guest” more compliant to being sent outside, tells his wife to jab a letter opener into one of the man’s open wounds—a bloody, grotesque gash on his leg. She does … twice, making the man scream in pain.

More generally, folks are threatened with knives and guns. Gunfights lead to fatalities. A couple of people get knocked out. Barricades are roughly pulled down. Assailants lovingly fondle machetes. We hear, after the Purge, an announcer say that it was among the most “successful” ever.

Crude or Profane Language

Five f-words. A half-dozen uses of “h‑‑‑” and two or three uses of “b‑‑ch.” God’s name is misused six or eight times (once with “d‑‑n”), and Jesus’ name is abused four.

Drug and Alcohol Content

James and his wife drink wine.

Other Negative Elements

Attackers call the injured man “homeless swine,” suggesting that his only reason to live is to serve as Purge prey.

When Zoey tells Henry she loves him, he tells her they should come up with their own thing to express their affection: The word love , he says, is just so overused. He tells her to “growl” instead. And she does.

This quick scene seems to foretell the movie’s central theme: the conflict between our higher and lower natures, human reason and animal inclinations, love and growl. And through this horrific philosophical exercise, we also see a nod to an imperfect understanding of how our idea of right and wrong doesn’t come from us, but from above.

This is a pretty big theme for the action/horror movie genre.

If we are all essentially creatures of accident—products of evolution unguided by any intelligence—strictures of what’s right and wrong are, by definition, man-made. And, conversely, any notion of a higher sense of justice is dependent on the existence of a Being greater than us, of a God who not just created us, but cares what we do.

The world we encounter in The Purge has attempted to set aside any morality rooted in God’s presence. We need not abide by any higher law , the new founding fathers say. The law is ours to make. We are animals. Therefore we must allow ourselves to act like animals. (Not that animals are given to going on unchecked, unnecessary killing sprees. But that’s another point entirely.)

But the Purge seems to be working in this concocted world. Whether through its bloody catharsis or because it eliminates society’s weak and sick and unproductive, it’s credited for pushing the unemployment rate to 1% and crime rates (at least for the other 364 days of the year) to all-time lows. So if “right” and “wrong” are truly man-made paradigms, who can argue with the success of the Purge?

Well. The Sandin family, for starters. Even though it’s the law of the land, the Purge is wrong . They know that. And we know that.

[ Spoiler Warning ] In the end, Mary is given a chance to destroy her would-be destroyers—to kill the people who came to kill her and her family. She’s still safely in the 12 hours of the Purge and has the power to wreak vengeance on some truly awful characters without fear of repercussion. She rejects the opportunity—much to the chagrin of many folks in the screening I attended.

“We are going to play the rest of this night out in m‑‑‑‑‑f‑‑‑ing peace,” she says.

And with that, we’re forced out of the philosophical realm and into the issue of content. The Purge’ s themes are indeed compelling, raising the story above the splatterfest riffraff. But, really, these same themes could be just as effectively dealt with (and maybe already have ) in an episode of The Twilight Zone . You don’t need the squirm-in-your-seat violence to tell this tale. You don’t need the obscene language. You don’t even need the time it takes (even though The Purge runs for less than 90 minutes).

The moviemakers could’ve taken a lesson from their own morality play: A little restraint goes a long way.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Screen Rant

'the purge' review, the purge is an easily commendable film to those who like the short, sweet, and cathartic violent enjoyment of a solid thriller..

In The Purge we witness an imminent future (the year 2022) in which America has created a new system for controlling crime, violence and poverty. Known as the annual "Purge," the 'new founding fathers' declare that for one day every year, all crime is legal while emergency and law enforcement services are shut down for a span of twelve hours.

James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a top salesman at a security systems firm, who lives with his wife Mary (Lena Headey), daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and gifted son Charlie (Max Burkholder) in a wealthy gated community, whose pristine streets are spared from the annual night of savagery. Things go horribly wrong when sympathetic Charlie allows a wounded man (Edwin Hodge) to take refuge in the Sandin's home, thereby attracting a posse of murderous upper-crust socialites, who demand the Sandins return the group's lost quarry... or face brutal consequences.

The Purge is basically Shirley Jackson's seminal horror story "The Lottery" refashioned as a quasi-philosophical, B-movie horror/thriller. Whenever the film is delving into philosophical quandary and social commentary, it is often an excellent piece of work; unfortunately, that excellence is dragged down by silly horror movie cliches and some lackluster characters. Overall, though, the movie is a tightly-paced and effective thrill-ride experience.

James DeMonaco both wrote and directed the The Purge . While his director credits are short (this film and an indie flick called Little New York ), his writing resume includes such memorable (but still B-movie-level) thrillers like The Negotiator and the 2005 Assault on Precinct 13 remake, which also starred Ethan Hawke. Like those aforementioned films, The Purge is a very tightly-paced and well-staged thriller, and DeMonaco (along with veteran cinematographer Jacques Jouffret) manages to turn the single-setting into a proper horror movie set piece. In general, the entire movie is surprisingly well-crafted and creates a definite atmosphere of second-to-second tension, with a few good horror scares and thrilling action sequences, to boot.

On the script side of things, DeMonaco is clearly borrowing from Jackson's story of complacency and tradition run amok, but he puts what he borrows to pretty good use in terms of crafting an interesting premise which engenders a simple but deliciously twisted spin on the survival-horror sub-genre. The most unnerving thing about The Purge is that the concept creates a sort of ' Body Snatchers- type fear; no one can be sure how anyone around them is going to react, given the opportunity for violence, which keeps things uncertain and edgy.

DeMonaco's tale, while often obvious and heavy-handed (but subtly brilliant at other times), is nonetheless a piercing head-trip in terms of core themes. In fact, watching it in theaters - watching audiences howling and cheering for gruesome violence - is enough to fill your head with dread about who your neighbor in the next seat truly is - or at least would be , given an opportunity to "purge themselves." There is definitely something unnervingly relevant and timely about The Purge and its commentary on our collective (and respective) psychology - just as Jackson's "Lottery" still has frightening resonation more than sixty years later. For those concerned: The Purge is not so much political as philosophical, and - given its approach to the subject matter - is generally one of the better horror/thriller concepts to come along in awhile.

Now for the rub...

Married to this intriguing premise and timely commentary is a schlocky horror flick, filled with big logical gaps and a few hollow characters who only exist to serve the film's manic plotline. While Ethan Hawke ( Sinister ) and Lena Headey ( Game of Thrones ) are both top-notch in their respective roles as Mr. & Mrs. Sandin, their children - played by Parenthood star Max Burkholder and Power Rangers R.P.M. star Adelaide Kane - are (in no uncertain terms) poorly-drawn horror movie cliches.

Young Charlie and teenage Zoey are literally walking MacGuffins who flit in and out of the shadows at different points (according to some vague narrative logic) solely to force the adult characters (and the audience) to constantly seek some new objective in the house or examine their morals - all while the threat of danger to the Sandin brood keeps things on the razor's edge of tension. Burkholder does as well as he can with his part, but Kane's acting, like her character, sinks deep into annoying caricature territory.

On the other hand, we are given some better characters in the form of our "villains," a roving band of elitist psychos in smiley face masks (why complicate things with names?). Their leader (credited as "Polite Stranger" and played by Rhys Wakefield) is a pretty freaky guy, who does about as well as one can with his on-the-nose monologues about society's "proper order" and such. Edwin Hodge ( Cougar Town ) is equally good as the "Bloody Stranger" the Sandins take in, keeping his nature vague but interesting enough to pull off one of the film's better arcs. The third act pushes things (and a few of the actors in the ensemble) into a campy realm of melodrama, before settling into what is either one of the most brilliantly witty or awkwardly terrible conclusions to a horror/thriller film that I've seen.

Despite ending on a strange note, and containing some cliched horror movie characters and tropes, The Purge is an easily commendable film to those who like the short, sweet, and cathartic violent enjoyment of a solid thriller - and/or those who enjoy entertaining movies that also leave you with something to think about. Those looking for a good horror movie might not get the "scares" they want - but tension they will enjoy in earnest, along with a few good laughs at those "I'm going in the basement alone" moments in the script. All in all, a solid bit of work from Mr. DeMonaco.

...Whom we should all thank when real-life "Purge Clubs" start showing up in neighborhoods nationwide.

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The Purge is now playing in theaters. It is 85 minutes long and is Rated R for strong disturbing violence and some language.

Want to discuss Spoilers and the Ending to the film? Go to our Purge Spoilers Discussion .

For an in-depth discussion of the film by the Screen Rant editors check out upcoming episodes of the SR Underground podcast . Or join the epic discussion over in the "How Would YOU Survive The Purge" comment thread .

The Purge (I) (2013)

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All The Purge movies, ranked from worst to best

In 2013, James DeMonaco wrote and directed The Purge , an action horror film with an interesting question at the center of its premise: what if crime was legal? For 12 hours, all crime is legal, including murder, and all emergency services are suspended. Set in a dystopian future,  The Purge  depicts a wealthy family fighting to defend themselves against a group of sadistic murderers on Purge Night.

5. The Forever Purge (2021)

4. the first purge (2018), 3. the purge (2013), 2. the purge: election year (2016), 1. the purge: anarchy (2014).

The Purge  exploded at the box office, making an impressive $89 million against a $3 million budget. The massive success of The Purge  spawned four sequels and two seasons of a television show. The film also started the partnership between Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions with Universal Pictures, a relationship that still lasts in 2023. To commemorate the 10th anniversary, we ranked The Purge movies from worst to best, which you can find below.

For the fifth film in the franchise,  The Purge  elected for their version of a western in  The Forever Purge . In 2048, the New Founding Fathers of America are back in power, and their first order of business is to re-establish the Purge. However, America is starting to question the Purge as many fear it will hurt, not help, the country. Set in Texas, The Forever Purge  follows Abela (Ana de la Reguera) and Juan ( Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ‘s Tenoch Huerta ), migrant workers from Mexico who illegally cross the border to Texas, where they work for the Tusker family.

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One year later, the country remains divided on Purge night. Abela, Juan, and the Tusker family are attacked the morning after Purge night by the “Purge Purification Force,” or PPF. The PPF does not want the Purge to be limited to one night. These extremists never want the Purge to stop as they attack innocent people in all fifty states. Canada and Mexico open their borders to those looking to escape the PPF, so Abela, Juan, and the Tuskers attempt to flee through El Paso into Mexico.  The Forever Purge is not as shocking as previous iterations, and its views on social inequality, capitalism, and racial divide are met with mixed results. However, it’s still a Purge movie at the end of the day, and there are two to three exciting action sequences to make up for the misfires.

Stream The Forever Purge on Max .

When was the inaugural Purge, and how did it come about? The First Purge , the fourth film in the franchise, depicts the origins of the Purge. In an alternate 2014, the NFFA came into power, and in 2016, they conducted an experiment that would serve as the basis for future Purges. On Staten Island, the NFFA introduces the Purge, an experiment where crime, including murder, is legal for 12 hours. The NFAA offers $5,000 to willing civilians who will stay and partake in the festivities.

The night starts like any normal night, but once the first murder happens, all hell breaks loose. To shake things up, the NFFA sends in trained mercenaries, including a serial killer named Skeletor (Rotimi Paul), to ensure the experiment’s success. The NFFA wants the remove the lower income class to create a larger wealth distribution gap between the rich and the poor. The action is not as exciting as other entries, as The First Purge emphasizes social commentary more than action. However, creating a prequel was a smart, fresh concept to explore the origins of Purge Night.

Stream The First Purge on Hulu .

The premise that inspired a series of films and a TV show was first introduced to audiences in  The Purge . Set in 2022, The Purge  follows a family of four on Purge night: James Sandin ( Ethan Hawke ), his wife Mary (Lena Headey), and children Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and Charlie (Max Burkholder). James works for a company that designs security systems for wealthy families to protect their houses on Purge night. James designed the security systems for his entire gated community in Los Angeles.

On Purge night, Charlie disables the security system and lets in a stranger (Edwin Hodge) being hunted by a group of merciless Purgers. Led by their polite leader (Rhys Wakefield), the masked and heavily-armed Purgers threaten to infiltrate James’s house if he does not give up the stranger. The Sandins decline the leader’s offer and choose to defend themselves. The Purge  is the most contained film of the franchise, as the second half is set entirely in one house. The first 20 or so minutes are nothing special. Once Charlie lets in the stranger in the house, put your seatbelts on because The Purge  becomes an exciting home invasion thriller.

Stream The Purge on Peacock .

The Presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was not the only hotly contested election to play out in the media in 2016. Set in 2040, The Purge: Election Year  marks the return of Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), the former police sergeant from Anarchy now working as the bodyguard for U.S. senator and presidential candidate Charlene Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell). As a child, Senator Roan witnessed the death of her entire family on Purge night, so she promises to end the Purge if elected President.

Viewed as a threat by the NFFA, the group removes immunity against government officials on Purge night in hopes that Roan will be eliminated. After being betrayed by her team, Barnes and Roan are forced to flee their compound and fend for themselves on Purge night. Grillo continues to shine as Barnes in an action role that is right up his alley. It’s hard to watch The Purge: Election Year and not draw parallels between the 2016 Presidential election and how it divided the country. However,  Election Year  does provide hope for a better (alternate) future, an unfamiliar feeling in a franchise littered with death and violence.

Stream The Purge: Election Year  on Peacock .

The Purge  may have introduced the idea of a crime-free night, but   The Purge: Anarchy   unlocked the franchise’s full potential in the sequel. Instead of containing the story to one family inside a house,  Anarchy  expands the universe with three distinct storylines across Los Angeles. At the center is Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), an LAPD officer looking to murder the drunk driver who killed his son one year earlier.

As Leo goes on his hunt for vengeance, he steps in to save Eva (Carmen Ejogo) and Cali (Zoë Soul) from an attack by the NFFA military. The trio links up with Shane (Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez), an estranged couple on the run from a group of masked Purgers. The eclectic group is left to work together to survive a night from hell. Unlike the first film, The Purge: Anarchy  does not have to waste time with exposition at the beginning of the film .  Anarchy  jumps right into the action, taking advantage of an expanded budget to tell an ambitious and enthralling story with multiple storylines and settings. To this day, it remains the best Purge film released.

Stream The Purge: Anarchy  on Max .

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With the release of Men on May 24, and Bodies Bodies Bodies scheduled for August 5, celebrated indie studio A24 looks to add several more well-regarded horror films to their canon of contemporary classics. Indeed, as with many of their previous horror releases, Men is already "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 82%. And Bodies Bodies Bodies boasts an early review score of 93% on the site.

Given the critical success earlier this year of X, as well as the smash success of their non-horror film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022 appears to be another banner year for the studio, especially on the horror front. Considering that they've produced and/or distributed so many films in just the last few years, it's been an impressive run of cinematic quality overall. Here are the best A24 horror films according to Rotten Tomatoes. 10. The Hole in the Ground (2019) – 83%

Everyone's favorite webslinger, Spider-Man, is in an interesting place right now. Caught in the middle of a corporate feud between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, the famous superhero could find himself removed from the Marvel Cinematic Universe if the studios are unable to reach an agreement regarding the character's big-screen presence.

With so much of his future in doubt, it seems like a good time to look back on Spider-Man's past -- particularly the eight films that have made him one of Hollywood's most successful box office heroes of all time. Here's a ranking of all the Spider-Man movies so far, counting down to his greatest cinematic adventure to date. 8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Director Marc Webb's 2014 sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man holds the dubious distinction of being both the worst-reviewed Spider-Man movie in the franchise and the lowest-grossing installment of the live-action films. As such, this was a pretty easy call. An overstuffed adventure that crams in multiple iconic story arcs from the comics while simultaneously introducing not one but three major villains -- with a few more tacked on as cameos and Easter Eggs -- Amazing Spider-Man 2 managed to drop the ball on just about everything it tried to do.

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Civil War Plays Like a Nightmare. You Should Still See It.

A24’s most expensive movie to date is borderline incoherent. that doesn’t mean it’s not important..

The year is unspecified—it could be a few years into some alternate future, or it could be right now. The president, a clean-cut establishment type played by Nick Offerman, is unnamed, his party and political affiliations unclear (though his rhetoric in an address to the nation sounds disturbingly authoritarian). And the precise nature of the domestic conflict that has torn the United States apart and turned the nation’s major cities into zones of open warfare is unexplained. In Civil War , the provocative fourth feature from Alex Garland ( Ex Machina , Annihilation , Men ), the details about why and how America collapsed into violent chaos are immaterial. What Garland wants is to drop us into the middle of that violent chaos as it unfolds, to make us see our familiar surroundings—ordinary blocks lined with chain drugstores and clothing boutiques—recast as active battlegrounds, with snipers on rooftops and local militias enforcing their own sadistic versions of the law.

One thing Garland’s at times frustratingly opaque script does go out of its way to clarify is that the ideological fissures in this alternate version of America occur along different fault lines than the ones that remain from the country’s actual civil war. The main threat to what we’ll call the Offerman administration is the secessionist group the Western Forces, a Texas-California alliance that’s intentionally impossible to extrapolate from our current red state–blue state split. There is also a separate rebel movement of some kind based in Florida, but above all, there is unchecked street violence and general social disorder. One early exchange of dialogue suggests that the war has been going on for some 14 months, which seems like too short a time for the country to have fallen into the advanced state of dystopia in which we find it: highways choked with empty cars, most of the population in hiding, the internet all but nonfunctional except in a few urban centers. But again, the point is less plausibility than viscerality. Garland got his start writing a zombie movie, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later , and he has also co-written an award-winning action video game. Civil War , A24’s most expensive movie to date, sometimes plays like a mashup of those two genres, with the viewer as first-person player and our armed fellow citizens as the zombies.

As the film begins, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a veteran war photographer,  is in New York City, holed up at a hotel that doubles as a makeshift command center for the press. Knowing that the Western Forces are on the verge of taking the capital, Lee and her longtime professional partner, a wire-service reporter named Joel (Wagner Moura), are planning a perilous road trip from New York to D.C. in the unlikely hope of landing an interview with the embattled president. Lee’s longtime mentor, news editor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), warns them that the plan is sheer madness—then asks if, despite his age and limited mobility, he can get in on the action.

As they’re preparing to leave, they’re joined, despite Lee’s protests, by Jessie ( Priscilla ’s Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring photojournalist in her early 20s who idolizes Lee’s work but has no experience in war zones. Bringing along the stowaway Lee disparages as a “kindergartner” will only, she argues, put all of them in even more danger. These doubts turn out to be justified: The presence of Jessie, a live wire with a penchant for unnecessary risk-taking, makes the journey to D.C. even more perilous, while forcing Lee to confront how jaded she’s become after years of compartmentalizing her most scarring memories. On the way to the capital, this multigenerational foursome encounters gas-station vigilantes, a shootout at an abandoned Christmas-themed amusement park, and a gut-churning encounter with a racist militant played by Dunst’s real-life husband, Jesse Plemons.

In its vision of journalism as a form of amoral adventure-seeking, Civil War belongs to a long tradition of films about hardened war correspondents in far-flung places, movies like A Private War and The Year of Living Dangerously . But the fact that the carnage these reporters are documenting is homegrown shifts the inflection significantly. Suddenly it’s impossible to exoticize or otherwise alienate ourselves from the bloodshed onscreen, which makes us ask ourselves what we were doing exoticizing it in the first place. This effect of moral immediacy is Civil War ’s greatest strength, and the reason it feels like an important movie of its moment even if it isn’t a wholly coherent or consistently insightful one.

Garland’s idea of throwing us in medias res during a civil war in progress is a bold gambit, and his cinematic instincts—his sense of where to put a camera and how long to draw out a moment of suspense—are often keen. The horrible realities he makes us look at—intra-civilian combat, physical and psychological torture, the everyday depths of human depravity—are summoned powerfully enough that Civil War remains emotionally and physically affecting even as the ideas it seeks to explore remain fuzzy. Is this a critique of contemporary journalism or a salute to the courage of reporters on the front lines? If it’s meant to be suspended somewhere in between, how does the filmmaker position himself on that line, and how should we, the audience, feel about the protagonists’ sometimes dubious choices?

Even as they document street battles and point-blank executions, adrenaline junkies Jessie and Joel occasionally exchange devilish grins. Meanwhile, Lee is all but incapable of normal human relationships because of her unacknowledged PTSD. A late sequence finds them unofficially embedded with an especially ruthless death squad; it would seem important to establish whether this alignment is meant to signify their ultimate journalistic corruption or a necessary compromise for the survival of the Fourth Estate. Even on the level of plot logic, the movie poses a question that the script’s curiously thin worldbuilding never answers: If the internet and most of the nation’s industrial infrastructure are in ruins, how are ordinary people reading Joel’s articles and looking at the photos that Lee herself struggles for hours to upload? If it is intended in part as a satire of journalistic opportunism, Civil War should be more specific about the conditions of 21 st -century media in wartime, especially given that it’s coming out at a moment when front-line reporters face more physical danger than at any time in recent memory.

All we learn of Lee’s background is that, like Jessie, she is from a farm town in the interior of the U.S., with parents who are in stubborn denial about the crumbling of the republic. But because Kirsten Dunst is a remarkable artist, she makes this somewhat underwritten character, who on paper could have been a stoic “badass” stereotype, into a complex and indelible presence. Dunst also, perhaps for the first time, loses the girlish quality she has brought even to middle-aged characters: Lee Smith is a plain, scowling woman with a glum, even abrasive mien. She’s a person whose perspective on life has narrowed down to the size of a camera lens, yet she’s also a committed journalist and a fiercely loyal colleague. As the other three sort-of protagonists, Moura, Henderson, and Spaeny all turn in finely tuned performances that bring a depth to their characters beyond what the script provides, but it’s Dunst whose thousand-yard stare and deep-buried grief will stay with me.

“What kind of American are you?” Plemons’ fatigues-and-pink-sunglasses-clad character asks the journalists one by one as he terrorizes them at gunpoint in the movie’s scariest and most successful sequence. (Not for nothing, it’s also the moment that suggests the most strongly that the vaguely defined conflict in this fictive America has everything to do with race.) That may be the screenplay’s smartest single line, in that it dispenses with the metaphorical quality of Civil War ’s imagined political dystopia and presents us with the real question many Americans are asking each other and themselves right now, sometimes in a self-reflective mode, sometimes in a contentious or overtly threatening one. As the unfolding of that encounter with Plemons makes clear, as soon as the question is asked with a weapon in your hand, it becomes a trick question, posed not to start a conversation but to set a trap. Civil War often leaves the audience feeling trapped in an all-too-realistic waking nightmare, but when it finally lets us go, mercifully short of the two-hour mark, it sends us out of the theater talking.

This Cosmic Horror Movie Borrows From Lovecraft and David Lynch

Cosmic horror takes the shape of a death cult and an unseen entity.

The Big Picture

• Benson and Moorhead excel in sci-fi horror, inspired by Lovecraft and Lynch, creating films that defy explanation and terrorize viewers.
• The Endless captures cosmic horror perfectly by hiding monstrous entities, letting imagination breed fear more effectively than visual effects.
• The film has Lynchian disorientation, showcasing nightmarish time loops and characters trapped in endless cycles, culminating in a thrilling yet happy ending.

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have been specializing in exciting sci-fi horror, starting with their first film, 2012's Resolution . They have since directed five films together , have a segment in the found footage V/H/S franchise, and even directed episodes in the hit Marvel series Moon Knight and Loki. They are now attached to the highly anticipated series, Daredevil: Born Again . While they may be successful in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, before that they made their names with some truly horrifying films that brought many so-called "unfilmable" ideas to the screen. Inspired by the cosmic horror that was popularized by fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft and paired with some nightmarish and unexplained imagery that channels David Lynch , the duo gave us 2017's The Endless .

The Endless

As kids, they escaped a UFO death cult. Now, two adult brothers seek answers after an old videotape surfaces and brings them back to where they began.

What Is 'The Endless' About?

The film follows two brothers, Aaron and Justin (played by the co-directors) who are still assimilating to everyday life after escaping a so-called UFO Death Cult a decade earlier. One day, they find a package at their door containing a mysterious video message from the cult. Aaron, the younger brother, wants to return to the commune and is adamant that the group is not the evil cult his brother keeps telling him about. Justin agrees to go just for one day to finally gain closure from their tumultuous childhoods, hoping that Aaron can finally move on. When Aaron and Justin arrive at the commune they grew up in, they find that all the people they remember from childhood look like they haven't aged a day. The group brushes it off as a product of fresh food and air. While Justin isn't convinced, Aaron doesn't seem to even notice this oddity, a sign of his warped childhood memory. As they spend more time with the group, they begin to realize that there is a lot more going on than they originally thought, as more unexplained events unfold throughout their stay.

'The Endless' Does Lovecraft Horror Right

While The Endless is not directly based on one of Lovecraft's stories, it's clearly inspired by his work. Lovecraft was the leading voice in cosmic horror, and he is a large part of the reason we have films like The Thing , Prince of Darkness , and The Mist , and shows like Lovecraft Country and Stranger Things . His name may have become synonymous with behemoth monsters, tentacles, and creatures that defy description, but the true horror of his work thrives in the sheer insignificance of humanity in the face of the unimaginably vast universe.

Benson and Moorhead implement this directly into the cult's religion of this strange entity that seems to be tied to this land. We never fully see it, only the implications of its form. In one scene, we see an interpretation of the creature through drawings of one of the residents. When Justin jumps into the lake, he resurfaces visibly disturbed and urgently demands Aaron to row them back to land immediately. As the boat heads in, we see strange, incomprehensible shadows in the lake. During the rope activity that the group does, the inky night sky seems like the entire entity itself looming over them. Even in the film's bombastic climax, the swirl of colors doesn't expose the form of the entity and instead just shows the destruction it causes. It doesn't matter what it looks like, nor does it need impressive visual effects to get the point across. Less is more in this situation, and we don't need to see the entity to fear it. Hiding the monster leads our imagination to worse places, scaring us more than any visual could.

'The Endless' Also Has a David Lynch Feel

While Lovecraft is a huge inspiration for this film, there is also a strong Lynchian feel to The Endless . David Lynch , known for his interpretive filmmaking and continued refusal to explain any of his films or television shows, is one of the best working horror directors out there. While some of his movies are more traditional, others aren't as easy to fully understand. Inland Empire , a story of an actress who adopts the persona of a character she is portraying, is so surreal and shocking that it serves as a complex and mind-boggling experience even after the and Eraserhead . Lynch thrives on disorienting the audience through the characters' experiences.

While Benson and Moorhead provide a much more coherent plot and leave less unanswered for us in The Endless , there is a lot of nightmarish imagery and disorientation that feel inspired by what Lynch has become known for in his career. The directing pair crafts horrific scenes surrounding the time loops the two brothers find. Trapped in an endless repetition, the people who are caught in the lure of this entity are unable to escape their hellish existence. It's soon discovered by the brothers that the time loops are all different lengths and sizes. Some, like the cult itself, have been going on for 10 years. Others are horrifically short, exemplified by one man's tiny loop in a tent that only lasts a few short seconds, trapping him in a never-ending escape attempt that Aaron stumbles upon. The loop is just short enough that he could never reach the opening of the tent, unable to even take matters into his own hands and end the loop himself.

This Cosmic Horror Movie Perfectly Combines Lovecraft With John Carpenter

When Justin runs into Carl's ( James Jordan ) loop, he follows him to his shack, and in the middle of talking to him, finds that he has taken his own life. In shock, he's startled to find that Carl appeared behind him again while still staring at the hanging body in front of him. Carl explains that ending it himself before the loop resets is a better alternative to whatever the entity might do to him. The time loops aren't where the surrealist inspirations stop. The quiet scenes crawl under your skin more than the big ones, like Aaron looking up at the sky as a picture unexpectedly falls to his feet, and the picture is of himself looking up at the sky just seconds before. Lynch also loves to recontextualize scenes in his films, and The Endless pulls a similar bait-and-switch when we find out that Justin had lied about the cult to make sure Aaron would never want to return. Even though the viewer has seen these inexplicable events take place by the time this argument happens, there is a question about what that means for everyone involved, making the film all the more disorienting as to what the truth really is.

A lot of Lynch's films have a similar theme of being stuck. While it's usually more metaphorical, like the actress getting stuck in a role in Inland Empire or the fear of fatherhood in Eraserhead , many of his characters are unable to break out of a horrific cycle. That is directly applicable to many of the characters in The Endless . Not just literally, like the residents of the commune and the few others around them being stuck in a time loop, but Justin and Aaron too. While Aaron is the one still clearly stuck in the past, Justin is too. Aaron holds resentment because Justin took him out of the commune for his own good, only for them to struggle in real life. Justin still agrees to take his brother back to the cult because he doesn't want to lose him, and we find out he is just as trapped as his brother. Of course, the difference between Benson and Moorhead and David Lynch is that nearly all of Lynch's films end horrifically. Benson and Moorhead alternatively give the brothers a happier ending, finally escaping the clutches of the entity and the cult.

'The Endless' Is (Kinda) a Sequel to Benson and Moorhead's 'Resolution'

Another shocking element that the film brings is only if you have seen Benson and Moorhead's debut film: Resolution . The 2012 film is about a man imprisoning his addict friend in a cabin in an attempt to force him into sobriety, but as the days drag on, they start experiencing strange events that might just prevent them from leaving. Michael ( Peter Cilella ) and Chris ( Vinny Curran ), the two friends from Resolution , show up in an important scene in The Endless. The fate of the two of them is to be trapped in a time loop just like the other groups, still hoping to escape themselves one day. Resolution is well worth a watch before or after The Endless . While it may not be as flashy or big as The Endless , there are moments in Resolution that are even more chilling and horrifying, including its ending. The scariest part can be the implication of something, rather than showing it outright. That's something we've all learned from Lovecraft.

The Endless and its predecessor are not the only projects in Benson and Moorhead's filmography that have a distinctly Lovecraftian feel. Spring , a horrific yet enticing monster-romance, is yet again very inspired by Lovecraft. Synchronic 's drug-induced disorientation is right up the same alley, and even Marvel's Moon Knight implements some of these same themes as different personalities take over Jake Lockley ( Oscar Issac ). Benson and Moorhead are fantastic directors who continue to push boundaries in their work, bringing big ideas to the screen effortlessly, oftentimes on a small budget.

The Endless is currently streaming on Peacock in the U.S.

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Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images and language throughout). In theaters.

All director Alex Garland had to do was title his new movie “Civil War” for it to instantly be deemed Very Important by tastemakers.

Who cares that the script is lousy? Or that the acting is monotonous? Or that the story amounts to a series of gruesome killings that you’d rather not sit through?

Doesn’t matter. It’s essential!

The gnarly film is about a modern-day domestic war in America and is, therefore, a prescient warning to us all, we’ve already been told with conspicuous enthusiasm by lefty newspaper op-eds.

They insist: You, too, could soon be tied up at a roadside gas station and tortured by dudes with Southern drawls.

But really Garland’s movie is no more vital to the discourse than “ The Purge ,” and is about 1% as entertaining.

“Civil War’s” shtick is that it’s not specifically political.

For instance, as the US devolves into enemy groups of secessionist states, Texas and California have banded together to form the Western Forces. That such an alliance could ever occur is about as likely as Sweetgreen/Kentucky Fried Chicken combo restaurant.

Still, one deadly encounter with a soldier played by Jesse Plemons leaves no doubts about what actual party he is supposed to represent.

The Western Forces are duking it out with the loyalist states who follow the president (Nick Offerman) — a fascist in an illegal third term — as well as the Florida Alliance and the New People’s Army.

Lest you arrive expecting cool battles, the fights are mostly just three or four guys shooting three or four other guys until a slightly bigger clash at the end. All we get are tiny tussles in a war supposedly affecting 350 million people.

Garland, with his incessant vagueness, is clearly aiming to keep the story universal rather than divisive. 

However, considering his movie is set in a land of folks who love to discuss and argue about the news, it’s odd that none of the characters ever give concrete details about what’s going on. How did this conflict start? What does anybody stand for? Who knows?

Avoiding the elephant (and donkey) in the room makes the whole shebang feel fake, with the help of some lethargic actors.

Our guides through this not-believable hellscape are a quartet of unlikable war journalists whose lives we barely learn about beyond their resumes. 

Kirsten Dunst plays Lee Smith , a hardened frontline photographer for Reuters who’s become numbed to violence and danger over the years.

Joel (Wagner Moura) is her reporter sidekick, who gets a thrill out of the battlefield … until he doesn’t. Moura’s performance, by the way, leads me to believe his numbskull journo couldn’t convince a telemarketer to talk to him.

Stephen McKinley Henderson is an aging New York Times writer named Sammy, who’s just about had enough. And Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is a young, aspiring fotog who worships Smith and tags along for the ride. 

They embark on a road trip from New York City — which is being bombed — to Washington, DC, in an attempt to interview the press-hating president who is hiding out in the White House.

The plot plods along — they drive a bit, guy gets shot, they drive some more, guy gets shot — and the dialogue is bottom of the barrel.

At one point, Joel walks into a clothing store in an eerily calm small town and says, “Are you guys aware that there’s a pretty big civil war going on all across America?” 

This is what the New York Times called “a terrifying premonition of American collapse”!

Dunst is the best of the four performers , but a bitter, been-there-done-that reporter is such an old cliche. She adds nothing new to the archetype except her name.

A movie about a fictional second civil war isn’t a terrible idea, I’ll grant.

But how about instead of torturing viewers with a parade of point-blank executions, Garland tries making a well-executed film?

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New ‘blair witch’ movie in the works from lionsgate, blumhouse.

Blumhouse has struck a deal to reimagine other horror films for the movie studio.

By Aaron Couch

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Lionsgate and Blumhouse are headed back to the woods for a new Blair Witch Project movie.

It’s part of a multifilm deal between the studios that will see Blumhouse reimagine horror classics from Lionsgate. The deal follows the duo collaborating on Imaginary , which has earned $38.2 million since release last month.

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Lionsgate film chair Adam Fogelson and Jason Blum announced the news.

“I have been incredibly fortunate to work with Jason many times over the years. We forged a strong relationship on  The Purge  when I was at Universal, and we launched STX with his film  The Gift.  There is no one better at this genre than the team at Blumhouse,” said Fogelson. “We are thrilled to kick this partnership off with a new vision for  Blair Witch  that will reintroduce this horror classic for a new generation.” 

Blum gave a nod to Blair Witch for helping kick open the door for his own found-footage hit Paranormal Activity , saying, “I don’t think there would have been a  Paranormal Activity  had there not first been a  Blair Witch , so this feels like a truly special opportunity and I’m excited to see where it leads.”

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Debi mazar says she regrets turning down ‘the wedding singer’ role: “made a stupid decision”, pam grier says she still has injuries from ‘foxy brown’ because she “didn’t have a stunt double”, ‘space mountain’ movie lands ‘cowboy bebop’ showrunners (exclusive), elliot page developing sci-fi novel ‘the darkness outside us’ as feature (exclusive), drew barrymore says ‘never been kissed’ studio pushed back on her going “too far” with character, ‘rebel moon’ director zack snyder talks the ending of ‘part two,’ cathartic director’s cuts and ‘part 3’.

'Sasquatch Sunset' a surreal showcase for bigfoot bodily functions

In fur and makeup, jesse eisenberg and riley keough spend most of the movie scratching, sneezing and worse..

Jesse Eisenberg never says a word while playing one of the hairy beasts in “Sasquatch Sunset.”

Bleecker Street

With sincere and true respect for the talents of all those individuals who climb inside mascot costumes and become Gritty or Mr. Met or Benny the Bull or Bucky Badger or Paydirt Pete or Brutus Buckeye, you wouldn’t know it if an equally skilled person took over mid-game, right? I mean, how could you?

The Mascot Conundrum, as the experts call it — all right, I just made that up — came to mind when I was making the difficult slog through the admittedly ambitious but quite disgusting and weirdly inconsistent bigfoot drama/satire “Sasquatch Sunset.”

One must give props to the talented actors Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough for disappearing under the Sasquatch costumes and makeup and throwing themselves into their respective roles, and I have no doubt they worked hard on their movements and their grunts and their growls and such. But given that there’s not a line of dialogue in this surreal, docudrama-style adventure story, there are long stretches of time when it could be just about anybody under the cryptid outfit. Yes, there’s room for facial expressions, and there are some closeups when we can see the eyes of one of the Sasquatches, but on balance: Mascot Conundrum.

Directed by the undeniably talented duo of Nathan Zellner and David Zellner (“Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter,” 2018’s “Damsel”), with David penning the script, “Sasquatch Sunset” takes place in the 1980s (the clues are admittedly fun) and chronicles a year in the lives of a family of Sasquatches. Jesse Eisenberg and Nathan Zellner portray adult males, while Riley Keough is an adult female and Christophe Zajac-Denek is a young ‘un.

They comport themselves almost like aliens who have been dropped onto the planet, as they’re unfamiliar with nearly every creature they encounter, from a turtle to a mountain lion. Also, they’re not the least bit ferocious and seem quite small, i.e., Jesse Eisenberg’s Sasquatch appears to be about 5-foot-7, which is the height of Jesse Eisenberg. I suppose that’s the point — that while humankind has long thought of the Sasquatch as a ferocious and mighty beast, they’re more like us than we thought, and perhaps more afraid of us than we are of them.

• Review of Hulu’s ‘Sasquatch’: Nosy man doesn’t find Bigfoot, but other beasts turn up

A great deal of “Sasquatch Sunset” — and when I say a great deal, I mean most of the friggin’ movie — is preoccupied with showing us various bodily functions of the Squatchers in graphic and nauseating detail. Peeing, pooping, sneezing, scratching, rutting, fondling themselves, smelling their own fingers after fondling themselves, hurling excrement … it never ends, until the movie ends. (That the practical effects are so impressively rendered doesn’t make it better.) One Sasquatch is so randy it considers sexual congress with a couple of different options, none of them promising. Keough’s Sasquatch gets pregnant.

The group sometimes displays a growing collective intelligence, and yet it still seems as if this is somehow their first year of existence, or they have zero sense memory. A few attempts at poignancy seem half-hearted and deeply cynical, given all the crap (literally) we’ve experienced along the way.

“Sasquatch Sunset” is the kind of film that seems almost pre-ordained to reach some level of cult status. Godspeed to those who will embrace its epic-level gross-out factor. I guess I’m just more of a Bucky Badger guy.

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Taylor Swift Tortured Poets Department review: Album finds star vulnerable but vicious

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That Taylor Swift would write a break-up album is no surprise.

Over her last 10 records, the star has taken a scalpel to her personal life, filleting the details of flings and trysts and heartbreaks to create some of pop's most memorable lyrics.

For the last half-decade, she's been in romantic mode. Songs like Delicate, Lover, Invisible String and Lavender Haze were all inspired by her boyfriend of six years, the British actor Joe Alwyn .

They were so close that Swift moved to London, and shared writing credits with Alwyn (under the pseudonym William Bowery) on her Grammy Award-winning albums Folklore and Midnights.

Then, in April 2023, a month after Swift kicked off her record-breaking Eras tour, it was announced that they had split.

An anonymous source told People magazine it was "amicable" and "not dramatic". But when the singer announced her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the Grammys this February, fans began to speculate it would deal with the fall-out.

They were quick to note how the title bore similarities to a group chat shared by Alwyn and his fellow actor Paul Mescal: The Tortured Man Club.

Then, Swift told the audience at a concert in Melbourne that the album was her most cathartic project yet.

"It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life," she said. "I've never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets."

It certainly feels like a purge.

The singer is bereft and bewildered. Vulnerable in a way we've never heard before.

She sings of being so depressed she can't get out of bed, comfort-eating children's cereal, and crying at the gym.

You can hear her heart breaking on So Long, London, as she accepts defeat and moves out.

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" Had a good run / A moment of warm sun / But I'm not the one ," she laments, as layered backing vocals evoke the mournful goodbye of the city's church bells. It's up there with the best things she's ever written.

And the veil of grief remains in place, even when she's basking in the glow of her Eras tour.

" Breaking down, I hit the floor / All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, 'More' ," she sings on the deceitfully upbeat I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.

Later, she demands answers, wanting to know "if rusting my sparkling summer was the goal".

That line appears in the viciously-titled The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, a song that opens with a weary sigh but crescendos with anger and paranoia.

" Were you writing a book? / Were you a sleeper cell spy? / In 50 years will all this be declassified / And you'll confess why you did it? "

In the sleeve notes for the album, Swift acknowledges both the turmoil of the relationship and the sharpness of her pen.

"It was a mutual manic phase. It was self harm. It was house and then cardiac arrest," she writes, before adding: "A smirk creeps onto this poet's face. Because it's the worst men that I write best."

So, yes, this is a break-up album. But Taylor Swift didn't get to be Taylor Swift by adhering to the rules.

Throughout her career, she's swerved expectations, transitioning from teen-queen country star to pop phenomenon and, during the pandemic, a folksy author of intricate character studies.

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On The Tortured Poets Department, she blurs the lines between her personas - writing both as diarist and fantasist, sometimes within the same song.

That approach peaks on But Daddy I Love Him, a stand-out, shimmering ballad about a small-town girl who runs off with the local bad boy, to the horror of her family, and "all the wine moms".

But the lyrics also address the finger-wagging discourse that surrounded Swift's reported-but-never-confirmed romance with The 1975's lead singer Matty Healy, last year.

Some fans felt let down by the relationship, saying that Healy - who has faced accusations of misogyny and racism in his career (all of which he denies) - was an inappropriate choice of partner.

In her song, Swift hits back, declaring: " I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning / I'll tell you something about my good name, it's mine alone to disgrace. "

Barbed lyrics like those prevent the album from becoming dreary with sadness; but the production (supplied by Swift's long-term collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner) can smother her more vengeful instincts.

The music is full of the pillowy synths and muted drums that served the hypnagogic vibes of her last album, Midnights, so well. That's fine when she submits to melancholy on the delicately percolating Bad Down, but when she writes something salty and mischievous like Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me? it gets suffocated by layers of echo and gauzy strings.

Some of her vocals mannerisms have become overly familiar, too - like the staccato pitter-patter of her verses, and the hooks she SHOUTS FOR EMPHASIS.

But a few tracks point towards new musical directions.

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The Florence + The Machine duet, Florida!!! earns its multiple exclamation points with a cacophony of drums and guitars that soundtrack a story of fleeing to the Everglades to escape the law.

And the sparse tremolo guitars of I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) lay the perfect groundwork for Swift's darkly self-deluded lyrics.

The Tortured Poets Department is an uneven album, and one that lacks a slam-dunk radio anthem like Anti-Hero or Shake It Off - but Swift has pop music in a stranglehold for now, so it will sell by the bucketload, even after the first 17 tracks leaked a day ahead of release.

And, because the singer loves a cliffhanger, she ends the album by hinting at her next phase.

Clara Bow is named after the US film star who became the first "It Girl" in the 1920s, and looks at how women are moulded and sold by the entertainment industry, with their time in the spotlight dictated by anonymous "men in suits".

The last verse, and the album's closing words, are addressed to pop music's next young ingénue.

" You look like Taylor Swift / In this light, we're loving it / You've got edge, she never did / The future's bright… Dazzling. "

It's a typical piece of self-awareness, bridging the gap between her self-perception and the perception of the public.

Swift knows her current world tour is a pinnacle, a once-in-a-career moment of cultural dominance - and there are younger (but maybe not hungrier) stars nipping at her heels.

With The Tortured Poets Department, she's closing a chapter on a relationship, for sure, but maybe on a way of living and working, too.

Is this the end of her latest Era?

Apparently not.

Two hours after it dropped, Swift announced that The Tortured Poets Department was a double album - with 15 extra songs instantly available on streaming platforms.

"I'd written so much tortured poetry in the last two years and wanted to share it with you," she told fans on social media .

This second volume lacks the thematic cohesion of the core album. She's still picking at the scabs of past relationships on songs like How Did It End and The Manuscript, but elsewhere she allows her mind to wander.

I Hate It Here is a spiritual successor to 1989's I Know Places - where Swift escapes the apparent drudgery of fame by taking flight to fantastical places in her mind; while So High School finds her in the throes of a teenage obsession, playing spin the bottle with a man who kisses her "while your bros play Grand Theft Auto".

Sonically, the second half of the record is more sedate, recalling the luscious soundscapes of Folklore and Evermore.

There are gorgeous curlicues of guitar on the caught-you-cheating ballad Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus; and the sparse, finger-plucked I Look In People's Windows is the album's shortest and most captivating ballad.

But the song that's going to catch fire on social media is called thanK you aIMee - the story of a spray-tanned school bully who galvanises Swift's entire career.

"I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool [but] I built a legacy which you can't undo ," she sings. " But when I count the scars, there's a moment of truth / That there wouldn't be this, if there hadn't been you. "

In the lyrics, she says she's "changed the name" of her nemesis, but the curious capitalisation of the title may hold a clue. Is KIM a reference to a certain Kardashian, who's been a thorn in Swift's side for several years?

In truth, the extra material doesn't add much to the overall package.

Swift is prolific to a fault and, although fans will lap up all 31 songs with salivatory excitement, the rest of us could do with a carefully-edited 12-track best of.

What's clear, though, is that this is Swift's final statement on her tumultuous last two years.

"This period of the author's life is now over, the chapter closed & boarded up," she wrote on social media after release . "There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed.

"Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it."

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the purge: election year.

Now streaming on:

NRA members will love lousy pseudo-political horror-thriller "The Purge: Election Year." In fact, the tagline for "Election Year" might as well be "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." 

"Election Year" doesn't just encourage viewers to cheer when garden-variety psychopaths are shot up, hit by cars, blown up, or stabbed to death during "Purge Night," a government-sanctioned holiday where citizens are encouraged to "purge and purify" themselves by committing crimes. Writer/director James DeMonaco (the last two "Purge" movies) also goads viewers with moral posturing by pitting working-class characters against hypocritical politicians, European "murder tourists," and other sloganeering baddies who insist that violence is an American pastime. If that's true, then DeMonaco's film is a prime example of the condition it derides, a fetid slice of US exploitation cinema that chides audience members while ineffectively whipping them into a frenzy. This movie is an ugly provocation, one that feels especially crass in light of national tragedies like the recent shooting in Orlando. 

Since this is the second sequel to DeMonaco's relatively tolerable " The Purge ," "Election Year" does not significantly develop or expand on the original film's premise. The New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA), a cartoonishly evil group of blue-blood politicians who oppress the poor, are still somehow in control, and still using Purge Night to line their own pockets. So it's up to Senator Charlie Roan ( Elizabeth Mitchell ) to stop Purge Night—provided she survives. The NFFA target Roan for assassination, leaving it up bodyguard Leo Barnes ( Frank Grillo ), and working-class bystanders Joe ( Mykelti Williamson ) and Dawn ( Liza Colon-Zayas ) to keep the senator alive.

The fundamental problem with this scenario is that the violence in "Election Year" is only selectively ugly. On one hand, the movie seems to have been shot with a beer-bottle filter, and the series' usual jiggly hand-held digital photography is used to cover instead of direct action scenes. But the violence in the movie is supposed to be not only cathartic, but downright crowd-pleasing. Roan may talk a good game, yet she never protests too much when Leo and his allies stop bad guys by murdering them. The NFFA—who don't really resemble Donald Trump, despite the film's tagline of "Keep America Great"—are supposed to be bad because they talk out of both sides of their mouths. But while their leaders protest that it is not "hypocritical" to purge because violence is "purifying," we're supposed to enjoy watching Dawn take out whatever generic bad guys that Leo isn't able to. There may be nothing substantially different between Leo's and the NFFA's methods. But any claims to effective satire go out the window when your villains are yelling about the American nature of violence, and the only response they get is a grisly death.

Then again, what would you expect from a film that treats blue collar heroes like Joe and Dawn as token signs of progress? There's so much wrong with this film, from its muddy visual scheme to its Hans Zimmer-lite score (try to listen to the film's klaxon-like music and not think of Zimmer's " Inception " braaahm -intensive score). But the worst part is that it tries to pass as a film about and for those who Jarvis Cocker famously called "common people." Dawn is a personality-less butt-kicking heroine—she gets by with a glare and a gun—but Joe is hatefully stereotypical. He's curiously humanized by his need to protect his bodega, whose Purge Night premiums mysteriously sky-rocket just before the Purge. But much of Joe's dialogue is blatant, sometimes offensive pandering, like when Joe's group is surrounded by gang members, and he laments that they're like a bucket of fried chicken that's about to be attacked by a bunch of "negroes." Joe's use of the word "negro" is supposed to be convivial, not offensive, but he uses it three times for the sake of establishing his everyman bonafides. How are viewers supposed to trust a film that uses Joe's race as a cheap punchline? Joe even saves Leo by revealing that he once was a gang member. And one of Joe's regular customers only cares about two things: "pussy and waffles." Just what we need—another film that views black people through the lens of racist tropes.

To be fair: low-brow humor, race-baiting, and even acts of savage violence can theoretically be used to express political anger in effectively unsettling ways (for proof, see Rob Zombie's " The Devil's Rejects "). But only a truly miserable and, yes, hypocritical film tsk-tsks with one hand what it offers with the other. There's nothing specific, thoughtful or emotionally involving about "Election Night" beyond a basic need to push buttons, and get a rise out of viewers. The good guys are actually bad, and the bad guys are too indistinct to be hateful. Vote with your wallets, and go see something else.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Rated R for disturbing bloody violence and strong language.

105 minutes

Frank Grillo as Sergeant Leo Barnes

Mykelti Williamson as Joe

Liza Colon-Zayas as Dawn

Joseph Julian Soria as Marcos

Edwin Hodge as Dante Bishop

Elizabeth Mitchell as Senator Charlie Roa

• James Demonaco

Cinematographer

• Jacques Jouffret
• Todd E. Miller
• Nathan Whitehead

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The First Purge

Where to watch.

Watch The First Purge with a subscription on Netflix, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

The First Purge should satisfy fans of the franchise and filmgoers in the mood for violent vicarious thrills, even if its subtextual reach exceeds its grasp.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Gerard McMurray

Y'lan Noel

Lex Scott Davis

Joivan Wade

Patch Darragh

Chief of Staff -- Arlo Sabian

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