The Purge (DeMonaco, 2013)

The United States of America, thanks to her New Founding Fathers, is at a time of utopian bliss. Unemployment is down to 1%, and there is virtually no crime. All of this happiness exists because of The Purge, an annual event in which all crime, including murder, is legal for a 12-hour period.

This creative premise and original idea for a film, unfortunately, is wasted on a standard horror film.

James DeMonaco directs The Purge like a routine home invasion thriller- and it deserves so much more than that. With today's standards of horror releases being one gorefest after another, The Purge had the potential to become a unique and refreshing scary movie. Instead, it's a predictable shoot-out with no meaningful depth added to the characters or story.

The Purge is told from the perspective of a wealthy family, able to afford protection because the husband (Ethan Hawke) sells the armor technology to upper class households. His wife (Lena Heady) understands all the "good" The Purge does, but the children (Max Burkholder and Adelaide Kane) are more hesitant of its inherent implications. When this year's Purge rolls around, the family locks down their house and waits out another brutal evening. But only a few hours into the mayhem, the son lets in a mysterious stranger who is being stalked by a gang of ultra violent socialites. The gang demands that the family now release the stranger- or they will kill everyone inside under the protection of the United States government.

Despite an intriguing beginning, the audience completely loses interest in the characters and their fates by the second half. The characters are just too stupid to hold any sort of connection with them. The Purge almost makes fun of itself at times, throwing in hammy dialogue with mediocre twists that makes the bloodbath seem like harmless fun. The Purge never gets as scary or violent as it promises.

There remains so much that filmmakers can do with this highly original premise; it's built for a horror movie model, but not in the way it's done in The Purge. The box office success of this film could lead Universal to produce some spin offs. Hopefully they'll do more with this potentially expansive franchise than James DeMonaco.

Two out of five stars.