Purge

Seems a lot of IMDb voters don't like this film. I suspect they were seeking conventional sci-fi with action, CGI and possibly stars. A lot of people can't imagine sci-fi being anything else.

This film has none of that but some very interesting ideas about genetic engineering and programming for roles in life. It's a film that suggests if we don't care about each other, if we lose sight of what it means to be human, to love someone, we will doom ourselves as a species.

But it also has hope. It suggests that no matter what kind of control various governments or other control systems seek to impose on people, humanity will eventually reassert itself.

Some of the things I enjoyed about it were: a compelling and unusual story that asks the viewer to think and refuses to take the usual sci fi route of a hero triumphing over adversity (it's more complex than that); an original style which made liberal use of mock news reports, community service announcements, commercials and current affairs interviews as well as things like text and titles, rapid cutting and images within images. In short, a film which is not afraid to take risks.

I also noticed that some of King's mise-en-scene echoes those of several all-time great films - A Clockwork Orange, North By North West, and THX1138 come to mind.

I enjoyed it but as another reviewer says, it's not for everyone. If you like passive entertainment with predictable stories and lots of whizz-bang and bang bang, you probably won't enjoy Purge. But I see that people who like that sort of thing have also liked Purge so it's really up to the individual.

It's a pity those IMDb voters who didn't like it can't find the words to say why.

The purge is a great movie which force us to think what if it happen in reality.the concept of this movie is really outstanding.

It certainly has to say right of the bat that the handful of reviewers praising this movie (and even giving it a high rating, which it certainly doesn't deserve) are friends and family of the Director. Nothing against their deception order to help a friend, but blind loyalty and praise isn't doing him or the film any favours. Purge is about as exciting as drying paint watching grass grow. Uneventfully bad. And no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The fact that the Director has done next to nothing since proves my point. He gave it a go (alright, I'll give him respect for that), it backfired horrendously, he brought forward a wretched abortion onto the world, then fizzled away like a fart in the wind (leaving behind the foul stench that is his film).

You check the movies rating here, what you'll see aren't lies, fake news, trolls or whatever (insert conspiracy theory here), it's legitimate votes of 1 that are even far too good for such a terrible film to receive. Let's just hope nothing more will ever come about from this film.

Nobody here or in the External Critic Reviews is a friend or family member of the director. They are people the director doesn't even know and wouldn't know if they walked in the door. They are people who simply liked a film which was different.

As an ultra-low budget quasi-sci fi experimental narrative, Purge is most definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

But for me and for people I know, it's an interesting and unusual film made by a filmmaker who approaches film as an art form rather than as simple entertainment.

I won't go into the story here as other reviews have covered that. I'll just say that King is not afraid to use techniques that directly contravene the idea of sucking an audience into a story and pulling them along for the ride.

He even uses titles and text to deliberately jolt the audience out of passive viewing mode just as Jean-Luc Godard did with his political films in the 1970's.

This is one of the many things that makes Purge an interesting film to the people who like it – a profound knowledge of cinema and sense of daring to go beyond the conventional entertainment experience.

It's interesting that Lloyd Kaufamn himself liked Purge and personally picked it up for distribution.

Purge was made for less money than many Hollywood films would spend on makeup alone. But that didn't bother King – it drove him to seek new and different ways of doing things and thus create a film unlike any other.

As Mr Kaufman himself said – a true original....where most films today aren't.

Purge, I believe, is pitched at people who see film as an art form rather than as mere entertainment.

I hope this helps people to decide whether or not it is the kind of film they would like to see – for those who have voted it down haven't helped anyone understand anything at all about the film.