The following article contains spoilers.
The latest installment of The Purge movie series, The Forever Purge, finally offers a plot that makes sense. In the other movies, once the purge ends, people go “back to normal.” This time, however, once the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA), who instituted the annual “tradition” declares the end of the purge, a nationally-organized group of “forever purgers” continue the carnage, destabilizing the entire country.
The Forever Purge takes the regular premise of the series—one night that legalizes and endorses murder as an antidote to America’s problems—and adds a provocative political message. Instead of hearing about the southern border, we hear about how “the wall” is going to be closed by Mexico after a short grace period. We likewise hear speculations about the status of the “American Dreamers” in their new homes. The “forever purgers” are a well-armed organized group of white supremacists whose understanding of “purge” amounts to ethnic cleansing of non-whites; it’s likely that they organized on social media and underground internet chat rooms.
I am going to leave the political messaging of this movie aside, as it adds a second plot onto the essence of the series. Catholics can, and do, have a lot to say about the threats of white supremacy, online hate speech, refugees, and racist hate, but the addition of this controversial political messaging distracts from what the purge really is: the unleashing of the hatred of mankind and the loss of a country’s soul. Instead, I want to return to the original film and consider The Purge at a fundamental level.
The movie opens with a message:
“America. 2022. Unemployment is at 1%. Crime is at an all-time low. Violence barely exists. With one exception….”
From here, we hear that the NFFA instituted the purge to cleanse America of its problems.
Prior to the purge, we are told that America was on the verge of coming apart, but that the purge transformed America into a new nation. The creed of this new America is: “Blessed be the New Founding Fathers for letting us purge and cleanse our souls. Blessed be America, a nation reborn.”
In “America reborn,” the home security and firearms industries boom, and many lock down and watch their “purge entertainment.” News coverage features “experts” who make “scientific” claims about human nature, and how the purge offers a “needed release.” People put blue flowers on their doorstep to show support for “all the good the purge does.” In the words of protagonist James Sandin, “the purge saved this country.”
Newscasts also offer criticism. Some say that the purge creates a system by the rich to exploit and kill the poor. Indeed, only the wealthy can afford home security systems. The main story centers around the Sandin family’s attempt to stay alive when a group of elite, well-educated purgers attempt to kill a “homeless swine” for fun. This group of college students, donning machetes, shotguns, and demented smiling masks, breach the house and attack the family after they offer refuge to the man.
The story arc shows the development of conscience in the Sandin family. To protect his family, James tries to sacrifice the homeless man, but comes to see how that would destroy the moral integrity of his family. In a scene that shows the decay of moral conscience, James calls for his wife Mary to stab the man in his gunshot wound in order to control him so that they could turn him over to the purgers. In this upside-down world, the Sandin children have to teach their parents what conscience is.
We see how the moral law is written on the hearts of man. However, in a world where murder is encouraged by law, and where utilitarianism reigns as the social morality, their actions make sense. In The Purge, we see how the law acts as a teacher and changes not only how people behave, but how they justify things to themselves.
However, it isn’t until The Forever Purge that the idea finds its truest coherence: it never ends. The premise that our anger can be fed on one night and then contained all year is a farce, and the notion that it will solve our problems is just as fantastical. The “forever purge” isn’t a purge that gets out of hand. The purge itself is out of hand, so one that never ends is only fitting, as the movie closes with a broadcaster saying that “the NFFA is being destroyed by their own creation.”
Tom is a senior in the Lynch School, where he is studying Secondary Education, History, and Philosophy, with a minor in Restorative Justice. He is President of the Boston College Republicans, and President emeritus of the St. Thomas More Society. When not taking too many classes or writing for The Torch or The Free Press, Tom loves to watch sports, listen to metal music, and defend Leo Strauss against (unfair) accusations of Gnosticism.
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