Reviews for this film from our members:
- Steve Biodrowski @ Cinefantastique Online
- Excerpt: THE PURGE promises a chaotic free-for-all of citywide wilding; what it actually delivers is social satire.
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: It really oughtn’t be quite this easy to screw up something as bog-standard as a home invasion thriller quite this thoroughly.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: A bloody parable about the dangers of watering the seeds of violence.
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: there’s an interesting “what if” scenario that makes for good conversation and speculation by the audience. However, the execution borderlines on silly, with the movie thinking it’s a lot smarter than it really is.
- [New – 10/4] | Samuel Castro @ Ochoymedio.info [Spanish]
- Excerpt: The Purge pudo haber sido una excelente película de terror, por su planteamiento inicial, pero se convierte rápidamente en una cinta fallida, un proyecto que no estuvo a la altura de su idea.
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a provocative idea about America’s growing economic divide, but DeMonaco guts his own premise by both showing his hand too early and obviously, by howling lapses of logic and with weak direction of his actors.
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: [I]t becomes obvious that the concept for this dystopian future is only an excuse for a series of standoffs, shootouts, and fights.
- Candice Frederick @ Reel Talk
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Interesting idea; excrable execution.
- Mark Harris @ About.com
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Asks us to look anew — and askance — at conventions of cinematic horror while also engaging in startling satire of America’s culture of violence.
- Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
- Glenn Lovell @ CinemaDope.com
- Excerpt: … an unpleasant experience with no one to care about or root for. What you expect to happen happens.
- Dan Lybarger @ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Excerpt: It’s safe to assume that writer-director James DeMonaco, who penned The Negotiator and Jack, wanted to make a “parking lot” movie, one that viewers can discuss on the way to their cars and maybe even on their way home. Unfortunately, it’s more an “exit sign” movie, where the audience quickly forgets the content, even though it has been pounded into the spectators’ heads. It doesn’t help that the core idea behind the film sounds problematic even to the most lax of thinkers.
- Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: One of the dumbest thrillers you’ll ever see, writer-director James DeMonaco’s The Purge starts out with an idiotic, far-fetched premise and continues to stretch our credibility so far that we can barely recall a time when we might have had some credibility to stretch.
- Jamie S. Rich @ Oregon Live
- Excerpt: Filmmaker James DeMonaco (“Little New York”) has crafted a solid B-picture that works as a bloody, locked-house siege movie. Yet his script is wilier than it seems at first blush.
- Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Why didn’t they just go to Europe? Canada? Australia? Something.
- Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: In my screening audience for example, people would laugh and cheer as people were maimed, killed, shot and punished. These are the same people who probably find the hollow ideas presented in The Purge to be high-concept.
