The Purge (2013)

The Purge is a 2013 action horror film by James DeMonaco about a family besieged on the one night when all crime is legal.

At a Glance

Overview

In the near future of 2022, the United States is ruled by a party called the New Founding Fathers of America. After an economic collapse, they introduced an annual twelve-hour Purge: from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on one night each March, all crime, including murder, is legal and emergency services are suspended. Unemployment is now at one percent and crime is at a record low, and many people credit the Purge, though some point out that its victims are mostly the poor.

James Sandin has done very well out of it. He sells home security systems and has just become his company’s top salesman, selling upgrades to most of his wealthy neighbors in a Los Angeles gated community. On Purge night he seals his house with steel shutters and settles in with his wife Mary and their children, Zoe and Charlie. Then Charlie sees a wounded stranger on the security monitors begging for help and opens the door to let him in. Soon a gang of masked, well-dressed young people gather on the front lawn. Their polite, smiling leader makes an offer through the intercom: hand over the stranger, or they will break in and kill everyone. The family has to decide what kind of people they are.

Production

DeMonaco said the idea came partly from a comment his wife made after a road rage incident. He and producer Sébastien K. Lemercier were told while seeking funding that the script was “too un-American” because of its themes of violence and guns. Jason Blum, who was developing low-cost genre films for Universal, gave them $3 million, and the film was produced by Blumhouse with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes and Why Not Productions. It was shot in Los Angeles, and the small budget meant setting the story almost entirely inside one house, much like Blumhouse’s Sinister. Ethan Hawke took $10,000 up front and slept on Blum’s couch during filming. After the film’s success, he reportedly earned $2 million in backend pay.

Cast

• Ethan Hawke as James Sandin

• Lena Headey as Mary Sandin

• Adelaide Kane as Zoe Sandin

• Max Burkholder as Charlie Sandin

• Rhys Wakefield as the Polite Leader

• Edwin Hodge as the Bloody Stranger

• Tony Oller as Henry

• Arija Bareikis as Grace Ferrin

Reception

The Purge opened at number one with $34.1 million and grossed about $91.3 million worldwide on a $3 million budget, plus about $13 million in home video sales. Critics were less kind. Rotten Tomatoes lists 40 percent approval from 159 reviews, with a consensus calling it “half social allegory, half home-invasion thriller” that devolves into “numbing violence and tired clichés,” and Metacritic’s score is also 41 out of 100. CinemaScore audiences gave it a C. Entertainment Weekly gave it a B minus, saying it “clearly has a lot on its mind.” The premise proved far bigger than the film itself, launching a franchise of sequels and a television series.
The sequels kept coming for a decade: Anarchy (2014), Election Year (2016), The First Purge (2018) and The Forever Purge (2021), plus a two-season television series — a remarkable afterlife for a $3 million film the critics had shrugged at.

Spoiler: The Ending

Zoe’s older boyfriend Henry, who sneaked into the house, tries to shoot James and is killed. The family capture the stranger to hand him over, then decide to protect him instead. The gang breaks in, and James kills several of them but is stabbed by their leader. The neighbors appear and kill the gang, Zoe kills the leader, and James dies of his wounds. Then the neighbors, led by Grace Ferrin, reveal their real plan: they resent the Sandins for growing rich off them and intend to kill the family themselves. The stranger returns, kills a neighbor and takes Grace hostage. Mary stops him from killing the rest and makes everyone wait out the night without further bloodshed. When Grace tries to take control in the morning, Mary smashes her face with a shotgun. At 7 a.m. the sirens end the Purge, and Mary sends her neighbors away.

Trivia and Facts

• The film is set in 2022, nine years after its release.

• DeMonaco was inspired partly by his wife’s remark after a road rage incident.

• Ethan Hawke slept on Jason Blum’s couch during filming.

• Test screening cards from viewers who approved of the Purge concept

disturbed DeMonaco.

• Purge night runs from 7 p.m. on March 22 to 7 a.m. the next morning.

• The Purge started a franchise that includes several sequels and a TV series.