I love junky horror movies. Films like Saw or The Collection or even to an extent Evil Dead (though I would hardly call it junky), it's fun to see helpless teenagers in bad situations being gutted and fried and killed in the most gruesomely original ways possible without so much as providing a single scare. On the other hand, I love scary movies. Movies like The Descent, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity (just the first one). So, when I see a trailer for a horror movie coming out, it's nice to see it defined for what type of "horror" being provided. When I saw the trailer for The Purge, I couldn't make up my mind. At first it looked like that fun kind of junky horror movie not to be taken seriously that I really enjoy. But, as it went on it looked like that creepy as balls, home invasion, terrifying type of scary movie that I love. So, either way I was excited to see it. Not to mention one of the most original plots I've heard for a horror movie in recent memory.
The Purge is set ten years in the future when crime has almost all but dissipated and unemployment is down to less than one percent. This is all due to The Purge, a 12-hour period once a year when all crime, including murder, is legal. All emergency services are suspended for the period during the Purge when human beings can take out their wrath on those who are less fortunate (the poor) in order to live in peace the rest of the year. Already, I'm like: what an awesome premise for a film! This is like a Twilight Zone episode with more blood. Except, it's not. And I truly think The Twilight Zone would've killed it with a premise this rich. But, the movie simply failed in almost every facet possible save for the premise itself.
I'm going to break down everything that went wrong with the movie, because it was all based on simple wrong decisions. First, the right decision: setting up a premise as fundamentally awesome as the 12-hour Purge to a central location of a single family and what happens when shit goes awry. That was smart. While some of us would've loved to have seen a larger, city-wide purging, it was essentially a better decision to centralize it to one house and one family. Another right decision: family patriarch James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) has just risen to the top of his company selling everyone in his upper class neighborhood security systems designed specifally to keep everyone safe during The Purge. Due to his success, he's been able to add a second wing to his house making it the biggest house in the neighborhood (which also leads to a bit of envy amongst neighbors). This is still part of the right decisions. His son, a naive youngster who doesn't have the adult experience necessary to understand the necessity of the Purge itself. So, when the Purge begins, and the house is locked down, and the family assumes they're safe... young Charlie Sandin helps a man in dire straits running down the street screaming for help. He lifts the security system to let the man in and hide, unknowingly putting his family in harm's way. This is all still good stuff leading the story down a very exciting and nerve-wracking path.
This is when everything goes to complete Hell. These are when the utterly wrong decisions are made by writer/director James DeMonaco. There's a backstory that James' daughter is dating a much older man, to which he does not approve of. He bans her from seeing him, so before the Purge begins, he sneaks into her room, is locked in the house with the family, pulls a gun on papa Sandin, tries to kill him, and is killed by big daddy. So, where does lil daughter Sandin go after this? Who the fuck knows! She disappears for a good twenty minutes! Why? I'm guessing because the sophistication of writing emotional tragedy was too much for DeMonaco. So, she's gone. Then, helpless vagrant is let in by lil' brother Sandin, and he goes... um... hiding too. Yeah, he disappears. Obviously, mama and papa Sandin are worried about this man until a group of fifteen or so masked killers show up at the door demanding the Sandins release the vagrant due to their right to Purge. They claim they have heavy artillery and machinery that will crack their security system and if they don't release the vagrant by the time it arrives, they will be killed as well. Now they've got a real problem on their hands. So, naturally, lil' daughter Sandin would come out of hiding to find mom and dad, right? Nope. She's gone still. No reason behind it.
Okay, so now the Sandins have a real problem on their hands. They gotta get this dude out of their house or they will be surely killed. Papa Sandin knows this and snaps immediately into action getting his family together to find the vagrant, capture him, and give him up in order to save his kin. Well, after much searching, and the random unexplained return of the daughter, they finally catch him, tie him up and are about to wheel him out when... the rest of the family has a change of heart. They witness the animalistic instincts big papi has exhibited and they are now more afraid of him than they are the intruders outside. They chastise him for giving up an innocent soul to be killed and leave him be to do the deed himself. Sandin has a great line when the vagrant claims he doesn't want to die, he says, "you're going to die tonight. You can either die like a man and save the family, or die like a coward and get everyone killed." This makes sense to me! I would sacrifice ANYONE to save my family, no matter who they were. This is the correct choice. Unfortunately, that's as far as that right choice goes. Guilt tripped, Daddy Sandin develops some sort of retarded conscience, and decides to let the guy live and "fight" the armed intruders. So, instead of putting his family in the clear, he decides to put them in an impossible situation and directly in harm's way.
The cavalry arrives for the intruders which includes a large chain that they attach to the steel security walls and pull them down with ease. That was the plan to breach this impeccable security system. What?! So, the intruders arrive, guns in tote, and start to hunt everyone in the house. Even after all the tomfoolery that has unfolded in the house, I was excited for this part. The deaths of the intruders had to be exciting, right? Save for one scene in the family's game room involving an axe, the rest of the deaths are all gunshot related and boring. There are countless amounts of moments where it looks like a family member has met their end and someone else comes up behind the killer and blasts them from behind. This took me out of every moment knowing that no one in the house was in any real danger because there'd always be someone behind to save the day. In the end, more dumb spoiler-ish stuff happens and the movie ends on a less than satisfactory note.
The whole movie could've been saved if the right decisions had been made. The right decision to create the best conflict would've been for the family to ultimately decide to send the vagrant out to be killed, follow through with it, then have the intruders change their own minds and decide to kill the family anyway. But, these gutless Sandins, all of whom deserved to die and all of whom, save for Big Daddy D, I was hoping would be offed, were just too emotional for the liking of any audience. I wanted to love this movie so much. Even towards the end when I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen, step-by-step, I wanted it to be something it wasn't. It just so happened to wind up being a movie that was plagued by wrong decisions and multiple missteps.
D
No comments:
Post a Comment