Starring: Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Leven Rambin, Cassidy Freeman, Alejandro Edda, Will Patton

Director: Everardo Gout
Released: 2021

Mood: If you’re so tired after work that you can’t make even the most basic decision and need a movie that will give you a bit of almost every genre.

I’ve almost bought The Forever Purge DVD multiple times. The cover art just screams ‘horror Western’, and I’m drawn to it like a moth enthusiastically bashing you in the face when you open your door after dark.

I can’t explain why I kept thinking it wasn’t really a Western, and it turns out I was wrong about that.

The Forever Purge is like if you dropped Yellowstone into a dystopian version of America where armed men behind masks go around committing violent crimes including murder, under the protection of the president, and it’s dangerous to go outside if you aren’t white.

Whoops, I said “dystopian” when what I meant was “terrifyingly accurate.” And not because Josh Lucas and Will Patton both also appeared in Yellowstone…

The Forever Purge begins in 2049, just before the annual Purge. It’s a government-sanctioned night on which anyone can commit any crime, as long as they don’t use Class 4 or higher weapons.

White supremacy is sweeping the nation. There’s a wall between the US and Mexico – modelled after one of Trump’s actual prototypes. Racial tensions are high even among people who are just casually racist, like wealthy nepo baby Dylan Tucker (Josh Lucas) and his views on his father’s Mexican ranch hands.

Dylan is butthurt that Juan (Tenoch Huerta) is a better horse trainer. Dylan’s father (Will Patton as Caleb Tucker) is one of the ‘good’ millionaires, and pays all of his employees a ‘Purge protection’ bonus to help them survive.

Juan, his wife Adela (Ana de la Reguera), and ranch hand T.T. (Alejandro Edda) stay at a high-security bunker for the night of the Purge. Although the Purge Purification Force rolls through their neighbourhood and brutally kills everyone who couldn’t afford protection, they survive the night and it seems like all that’s left to do is clean up the blood and guts all over town.

But what they don’t realize is that unlike other Purge years, which end at the 7am siren, this year the people boasting swastika tattoos have decided to keep on purgin’. Adela is arrested for defending herself against white ‘Forever Purgers’ in town, while Juan and T.T. find the Tucker family under siege by a gang of Mexican Forever Purgers.

Everyone will have to put their differences aside if they want to make it out alive. But they’ll obviously lose a few expendable characters along the way.

Apparently this is the weakest of the Purge movies, but I haven’t seen them so I went into it not knowing what to expect. And I was entertained! I’m pretty easily entertained, but still.

Blood. Gore. Creepy masks. A handful of jump scares. A huge variety of weapons. Big action and stunts. The Forever Purge gives you plenty of blockbuster action, plus surprisingly sharp attention to details like the number of bullets in guns, and the makeup on women who haven’t slept for 24 hours. What it lacks in character development, it more than makes up for in production quality.

Ana de la Reguera is a standout as Adela. She gives the performance levels, and makes you curious about the backstory of a character in a movie where you’re clearly not meant to be thinking too hard.

Will Patton is also noteworthy. We expect the older generations to be more xenophobic and ranch dynasty patriarchs to be shrewd, so Caleb having a warmer vibe and more centrist perspective than his son was refreshing. Patton is equally skilled at giving you dark and light characters, and here he delivers a watchful man who seems like he does his research before forming opinions.

I love Zahn McClarnon, so it was fun to see him pop up as anti-Purge activist Chiago. The character feels a bit unoriginal, but McClarnon is so talented that he manages to expand it beyond the dialogue.

Everyone else gives their role at least some form of POV, and that’s really all you can ask from a movie like this.

The Forever Purge feels more dystopian thriller than horror to me, but it does have scary elements. The masks look like Donnie Darko meets Max Max: Fury Road, and anyone who isn’t at least a bit afraid of angry dudes with automatic weapons going around killing anyone who isn’t like them… is probably one of those dudes.

Some reviewers and online commenters have said that the racism and immigration themes are too heavy-handed, but others have clapped back that you’d only feel that way if you don’t experience that level of racism and oppression every day of your life.

I just found the plot to be way too much like like the news right now.

In this movie, Canada and Mexico open their borders to people escaping the Purge. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if the Purge took place now. Would we take the high ground and let in a bunch of probably undocumented refugees who have spent the last hundred or so years mocking us and would probably take the opportunity to try to annex us? Or would we say so long and thanks for all the tariffs?

This is why I probably wouldn’t watch The Forever Purge again. I watch movies to escape from reality, not to feel even angrier at it.