Movie Night! ‘More Purge…’ Edition

I wasn’t up to much this weekend, book-wise, so used being on-call as a bit of an excuse to catch up and try and make a dent in the pile of DVDs that I seem to have built up (no idea how that happened etc etc…) I still haven’t quite managed to fully make the leap to Prime and so on… I like having a shelf full of my favourite movies although yes, I really need to do something about the all the ones that I’m clearly not going to watch. But anyway… 😉

I found the ‘Purge’ movies, that I’ve seen, to be a bit of a mixed bag but Youtube did that thing where it threw a whole load of interesting clips my way and before I knew it, I’d somehow convinced myself that it was entirely my own idea to ‘book-end’ my viewing (chronologically, anyway) with the first and last movies in the series. And here’s what I thought…

‘The First Purge’ (2018)

To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the marginalised, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.

I quite liked this movie as an ‘origin story’ and how an already evil ‘social experiment’ is twisted further to suit the aims of the rich. I mean, three earlier movies kind of give the game away but this time round, that lends an air of inevitability to the movie. What is the point of taking a stand? Money will talk like it always does.

Well, the point is to survive and that’s what we’re left with here and it was at that point that the movie stopped doing its thing for me. The same group of people trying to escape the worst excesses of the other same group of people (although most of them, it turns out, were paid to be there so actually, yeah… it wasn’t as ‘samey’ as I thought); that’s what we have here and unfortunately for this movie, ‘Purge: Anarchy’ did it better. Until I watched the next movie…

 

‘The Forever Purge’ (2021)

One night is not enough as members of an underground movement, no longer satisfied with the annual night of anarchy and murder, decide to take over America through an unending campaign of mayhem and massacre, no-one is safe.

On the morning after the Purge, a masked gang of killers attacks a wealthy Texas ranching family and their workers. Exposed by daylight, the two families are forced to band together and fight back as the country spirals into chaos and the United States begins to disintegrate around them… 

I really liked this one 😊 This movie asks a question that maybe never occurred to the others, why stop Purging? Seriously, what is stopping you from doing what you want? There are more of you than there are of them. Go for it, purge forever…

Of course there’s something to say here about a populace being stirred up far beyond anyone’s ability to control but it was the weekend, and I wasn’t in the mood to think too much, so I just watched it as an entertaining ‘survival thriller’ which it did really well. The demonstrations of excess are all the same (again) but the group going through are a lot more engaging this time round with enough spark of their own to keep being interesting. I’d definitely watch it again.

And now it’s onto the TV show… I’ll let you know how that works out 😉

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Deathworlder’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)

Image
Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way ...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘Cursed City’ – C.L. Werner (Black Library)

Image
I always have these vague ‘reading resolutions’, for the New Year and without fail, they all come to absolutely nothing. I still read loads, just none of the books that I meant to… This year is panning out slightly differently and I think I’m going to enjoy it. All the books that were originally ‘out of sight, out of mind’, in the loft at my old place, are now all over my new place and wherever I look, I’m constantly discovering books that I totally forgot I had but now quite fancy reading. Books like ‘Cursed City’ for example… I’m not going to tell you how long ‘Cursed City’ was sat in my loft, lets just say it was long enough for me to totally forget it was there and buy myself another copy… Oh well. I found it on the shelf the other day (only the one copy now) and figured it was way overdue a read, let me tell you about it… Ulfenkarn is a city of nightmares. Its vampiric rulers have indulged their bloodlust in every shadow-clad alley, turning the once-proud metropolis into a charnel...
Read more