This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Joey :)’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
I genuinely can’t believe that I’m rating this movie so high, but I’m just so happy that I’ve found a Purge film that I really enjoy.
The Purge: Election Year starts off in the year 2022 where we are introduced to a teenage girl named Charlie Roan. It’s the night of the annual purge, and that’s how Charlie has found herself bound, gagged and bloodied alongside her distressed family. Their captor is a real sick man, and after toying with the family all night he decides that he wants to give the Roan family one last game to play. He calls is “Mommy’s Choice” and he asks Charlie’s mother to decide which member of their family that he won’t kill. Her mother chooses to spare Charlie, and the girl manages to survive the horrific ordeal. This isn’t the end of Charlie’s story though, as by 2040 she has risen above the rest in a way that no one could have ever predicted. Charlie is a very popular politician who is running against the New Founding Fathers Of America. If she wins Charlie will ban the purge forever and spare the citizens of America. Obviously the NFFA isn’t impressed with this at all, and that’s why they decide to implement some new rules for this year’s purge. This time around there are no restrictions around killing politicians, and that’s basically putting Charlie’s head on the chopping block. With the help of her bodyguard Leo, Charlie must find a way to survive the night, but she isn’t alone in this. A working man named Leo runs a little deli with his friend Marcos, and this year they don’t have any kind of purge insurance to save the place. They decide to protect the deli with the help of their friend Laney, but soon enough trouble finds its way to them. The trio have to help Charlie and Leo survive this terrible night and end the reign of the NFFA forever.
If I’m being totally honest, I have never really cared for the Purge franchise. They’re not inherently bad movies by any means, but I had yet to see one that truly impressed me. I had watched the first two and then the prequel, but for some reason this movie managed to totally evade. I’m not sure why this one in particular was so hard to track down, but it wasn’t even streaming on anything until I saw it pop up on Tubi at the start of the month. I was pretty excited when I saw the poster for this, and now that I’ve finally watched it I can proudly announce that I had every right to be excited. This is the first time that I’ve watched a Purge film and get genuinely impressed by it. There’s just so much hard work and creativity put into this film, and it shines through so clearly in every single aspect. Throughout the other Purge films I’ve noticed one common thing when it comes to my experiences with them, they couldn’t write characters that I gave a shit about. Not all of the characters were bad, but for the most part I just didn’t really care about them all that much. That’s what’s different about Election Year, I really wanted the good guys in this to win and survive. I was rooting for everyone, especially Joe, Laney and Marcos. I also have to mention that the scene where Laney shows up and just blows through those purging bitches was probably one of the hottest things that I’ve ever seen on screen. I’ve said “I would let them run me over with a truck and I would thank them” before about many other characters, but that particularly applies to Laney in this case. That being said, the best character in this film was the absolute show stealer that was Brittany Mirabilé as Kimmy. She just wiped the floor with every other performance in this film, and every time she was on screen she just stole the spotlight. It’s always wonderful to see younger actresses getting to be this kickass and evil in horror, and I would love to see more from this actress in the genre in the future. I’m just so happy that there’s finally a Purge film that I thoroughly enjoyed, and this just made me so excited.
Obviously a Purge film wouldn’t be a Purge film without a crazy amount of blood and gore, so I can’t continue on without yapping about this for a bit. Another thing that I enjoyed more in this film above the rest was its kills and use of violence. This movie is brutal, and it doesn’t hold back at all. I feel like even picking out one kill in particular to love above the rest would just be treason because they’re all awesome. If I had to just pick one though it would probably have to be Kimmy’s. As much as I absolutely adored the wonderfully brutal performance that she gave throughout this film, seeing that bitch get what was coming to her was just so satisfying. I also just loved the fact that she somehow managed to survive getting completely smoked by Laney’s truck, and yet she still died by Laney’s hand. That was so wicked, and it made me love both of these characters so much more. Another particular scene that I really liked was the scene where we get to see the Russian participants of the purge. The idea of people coming from around the world to participate in a murder fest is something that I wish these films had of explored more, but what they do get into is so cool. That group are all just so evil, and they make for such imposing villains in their very brief amount of screen time. I wish that Election Year had of explored this idea a little bit more, or at least given these crazy Russian more time to really shine in this film, but the fact that we got to see them at all is fine with me.
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Horror Movie #2039
