The First Purge Review
This movie pretty much unites two things I had little to no interest in despite their respectable popularity: These same Purge movies and Blacksploitation. The closest I've held to interest with these films could be when I watched a review of the first one, which reminded me more of a diet Battle Royale in terms of concepts. As for the latter I was more into Post-Blacksploitation films, if not Revisionist ones, from Attack the Block to the works of Jordan Peele to pretty much any that were well written/directed and also had to do with horror. Combine these two with the fact 2018 was a winning lottery number for horror films and you have a match made in whatever you believe works best for the genre. I guess what made it especially inspired was how it adresses the reality of gang violence and the fact The Purge just put characters like Dymitri in everybody else's shoes. Meaning that as a movie about the origin of the system it's at least smart enough to start on how killer instinct was already present long before the experiment set in after 20 to 30 minutes. Of course even as it is rooted in realism it still aims to hit as many marks as a horror movie it can from the quick yet effective feud between Isaiah and the slasherlike Skeletor to the system's inherent, if borderline generic, corruption after an hour passes. Plus the way it melds into a genre version of Die Hard towards the final act could've been worse. Obviously these movies are the kind that only give you what you expect from the premise, and this one just happened to be character based enough to break the mold. Eitherway the visuals, action, and that same expertly choreographed horror/suspense, combined with the sheer scope on enough levels, once again prove how even these films chose one of the better years to give it a go.