THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR (2016) * ½

Senator Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), who lost her family during Purge Night begins a campaign to abolish the Purge.  The Washington elite want to silence Roan and set out to assassinate her during the Purge.  Her head of security, Barnes (Frank Grillo) knows a thing or two about surviving the Purge and must protect her from not only the government hitmen, but also the killers roaming the streets.

The germ of The Purge has always been interesting enough, which makes the humdrum execution in film after film so damned frustrating.  Returning writer/director James DeMonaco hasn’t done hardly anything with the concept after three middling movies.  You get a sense that Rod Serling could’ve said so much more with the idea in a half hour episode of The Twilight Zone.  

The political ramifications of the Purge as portrayed in Election Year are clumsy and ham-fisted at best.  The more DeMonaco tries to make the Purge out to be a class struggle sort of thing, the more the allegorical aspects of the concept begin to unravel.  The further away from the survivalist plotline the film gets, the shakier the whole thing becomes.  (The subplot about shopkeeper defending his store from teenage girls with machine guns wanting candy works slightly better.)

Further adding to the frustration is the fact that DeMonaco will introduce tantalizing new wrinkles into the mythology and then do absolutely nothing with them.  For example, the idea of foreigners coming to the U.S. for “murder tourism” could’ve been made into its own sequel.  (Although I would’ve thought you’d have to be a natural born citizen in order to purge, but that’s just me nitpicking.)  However, this intriguing idea is relegated to one brief television newscast, and immediately forgotten.

Although Election Year is easily the weakest film in The Purge series, the Justified fan in me enjoyed seeing that series’ stars Mykelti Williamson and Raymond J. Barry appearing in supporting roles.

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