15 most memorable and overlooked films of 2018

The First Purge

I revisited Gerard McMurray’s The First Purge just a few weeks ago, and I have no shame in saying the following: the movies are getting better…and that’s sad because they’re becoming more relevant. A fellow critic said we’ll be using the Purge movies as teaching tools in film studies classes, and I believe it. What started out as a simple home invasion thriller in 2013 has become a bleak social commentary that, at times, almost feels like a documentary.

The First Purge is a prequel, detailing how the Purge came to be a yearly event in America. Using a small New York borough as an experiment, citizens are offered cash incentives to engage in purging, but when the event isn’t as bloody as many had hoped, a conspiracy of events is unleashed that leaves us with the series as we know now.

Certain scenes within The First Purge are difficult to watch if you know their context. With people being massacred in a church and women assaulted in the streets, it’s hard to dissociate the movie from reality. That’s screenwriter James DeMonaco’s point.

We joke about the world being one step away from these movies, but The First Purge says “we’ve already taken the first step.” I never thought I’d say these movies were genius, but they’ve had the ability to make us think harder than any documentary this year.