REVIEW: The Purge: Election Year [2016]

“Is murder our new religion?” The escalation of terror has dialed up a few more notches as writer/director James DeMonaco takes us further down the hole of first world genocide in The Purge: Election Year. What began behind fortified walls and a false sense of modest superiority to show how no one was safe when bloodlust, greed, and jealousy ruled mankind soon entered the outdoors to find the government blatantly enforcing its own thinly veiled mantra of “kill the poor” when the public stopped doing it for them. The only…

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REVIEW: The Purge: Anarchy [2014]

“We’ve lost our souls to attain this peace” I enjoyed last year’s suspense horror The Purge a lotā€”despite high expectations for the premise actually going where it needed to prove more than another generic home invasion flick. Writer/director James DeMonaco gave us the graphic brutality its conceit promised through its claustrophobically bottled skirmish between malicious debutantes and an (not so) innocent family trying to survive while also lending the social commentary at its back a voice. I use the parentheses because it just so happened that the Sandin’s patriarch was…

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Posterized Propaganda July 2014: ā€˜Magic in the Moonlight,ā€™ ā€˜A Most Wanted Man,ā€™ ā€˜Life Itselfā€™ and More

ā€œDonā€™t Judge a Book by Its Coverā€ is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column focuses on the film industryā€™s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. Oof. There are a couple good posters this month. That’s it. And I don’t mean “a couple” hyperbolically either. There are maybe two I’d consider looking at again at the…

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