The fourth film in The Purge franchise is a prequel and aims to show us the beginnings of how an annual event where nothing is illegal for one night came to be. Following the rise of an extreme right wing political party coming to power in America, the NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) conduct a social experiment on Staten Island where there is no law for 12 hours.

I must confess to having only seen the original Purge movie featuring Ethan Hawke and not the two follow ups with Frank Grillo. But given its prequel status and my relative enjoyment of the original I hoped I would not be short of any knowledge required to enjoy this. What I was not prepared for though was how insultingly bad this film would be. In fact, I was hugely disappointed when the credits started to roll that more content was still forthcoming during them, meaning I couldn’t yet leave the cinema.

There is scope for some insightful political commentary in these films and this one does waste some interesting ideas, relegated to mere filler. Social circumstances leading to the rise of a right wing government, a social experiment hiding a need to reduce population size and the marginalisation of the poor are all mentioned but not explored.

The only plot points The First Purge wants to follow in any depth are its B movie horror/action beats. Unfortunately it does this with zero success. The build up is overlong given its inability to explore the political stories mentioned above. The script is clunky leading to bad performances. The action is shot in close up, with poor editing, in the dark and invariably with smoke around, so I was damned if I was supposed to appreciate it. And the director/producers are so enamoured with the marketing of these films being linked to the masks the characters wear they constantly focus on creepy glow in the dark contact lenses and a dazzling array of Halloween masks. Our lead and the character we are seemingly asked to route for is a drug dealer who executes his enemies and for no apparent reason, appears to have elite armed forces training. I kept waiting for the explanation for his extraordinary skills but none were forthcoming and I can only assume that his ordinarily evil status as a drug dealer juxtaposed with his hero status may also have been a political statement unexplored?

And for those who have seen the trailer and were interested in the idea of a Marissa Tomei cameo as the doctor who came up with the Purge theory, I’m pretty confident you see very nearly her entire performance in the trailer!

It would seem The Purge will soon become a horror franchise churning out straight to streaming/DVD status on this evidence.