THE FOREVER PURGE
THE FOREVER PURGE I James DeMonaco’s dystopian horror saga enters its fifth chapter.
The are no rules in the franchise’s fifth instalment.
In 2013, The Purge presented a dystopian future where all crime, including murder, is rendered legal for one night a year. Its box-office success guaranteed more chapters and the twisted concept sparked discussion as to whether anything like the Purge could ever happen…
“My wife and I were driving in Brooklyn once, and I got cut off and almost crashed,” creator James DeMonaco tells Teasers, revealing how a bout of road rage inspired the series’ central idea. “I literally got into a fistfight with the other driver. This guy was crazy. The cops came. Later, my wife said, “Oh, I wish we all had one free one a year.” I knew what she meant, and that statement stayed with me. We all have those angry moments.”
SERIOUS SEQUELS
Deducing that studios weren’t keen on tongue-in-cheek tales, DeMonaco opted for a less satirical tone with follow-ups Anarchy and Election Year. While the
original poked fun at the affluent white family who made their fortune selling pricey home-security systems being preyed upon, its sequels exposed how characters of different classes and races were affected by the annual carnage.
“The first one was a little [Michael Haneke’s] Funny Games. With two and three, we started to understand our political intent more and how audiences were interpreting these stories,” says DeMonaco. “It’s about inequality. It’s about the fetishisation of weaponry. For me, it’s always been about the promise of America versus what it’s turned into.”
Prequel The First Purge and the TV series that came after expanded the world further as well, with the former exploring how the Purge began and the latter examining PTSD.
BACK TO THE BIG SCREEN
While its predecessors are set in suburbs and cities, The Forever Purge unfolds across the open ranches of Texas and New Mexico. It also sees a lot of action take place in broad daylight, as a group of outlaws break the usual 12-hour limit. “The main character is violence itself; how it spreads and how it’s contagious,” claims director Everardo Gout. “The stakes are higher because the Purge is no longer containable,” DeMonaco teases. “America becomes a powder keg for something more grotesque.”
When writing The Forever Purge, DeMonaco figured this would likely be the last instalment he’d be involved with. But when Trump supporters stormed The Capitol in January, that changed. “Sadly, the current political awfulness just keeps feeding that metaphor,” he explains, suggesting a sixth film would imagine how difficult it is to “put the genie back in the bottle” now that Purgers have rebelled. “If this movie makes money, there’ll be more!” AW
ETA | 16 JULY / THE FOREVER PURGE OPENS IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH.