The Purge – Containing Evil
I’m not a big horror movie buff, but my son is. After he watched The Forever Purge, he wanted to watch the first movie in the series. So I got to watch two horror films in one day.
As I said, I’m not big into horror, but I appreciate a well-written horror story. The Purge was exactly that.
Don’t worry, I won’t show any scary pictures or discuss any gory details (although, thankfully, the film wasn’t gory). But as this is Halloween month, I want to describe what I feel makes for a good horror story.
Some people assume every horror story is designed to terrify them as the reader or viewer. And it’s true that most of them are. But that does not define horror. Some classic horror films from the 1930’s, such as Dracula and Frankenstein, might not scare us at all today, but it’s still horror. Because it’s not about whether we’re scared as the audience. It’s about whether the story characters are scared, and what they’re going to do about it.
In horror, a character faces a monstrous threat and has very limited options to overcome it. They must destroy the threat, or permanently escape from it, or be destroyed by it. For this reason, horror reveals a character’s true nature better than any other genre.
When the T-rex first attacks in the film, Jurassic Park, the lawyer runs off to save his own skin, abandoning two children in a jeep. We can clearly see his self-serving nature.
By contrast, Dr. Grant has insisted that he despises children. But when the T-rex appears, he risks his life to draw the monster away from them. He then spends the rest of the film guiding the kids back to safety. Although he believes he hates children, the threat of the T-rex reveals his true nature as a fatherly protector.
Now, to The Purge.
It has been said that “all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.” Which is exactly what we see in this film. In a dystopian society, it has been determined that everyone needs a single night of releasing their urges, to maim or kill anyone they want to, without it being considered a crime during those twelve hours. Scary, right?
James Sandlin has developed a perfect security system to keep intruders out, so he and his family are safe, even during the Purge.
Until his son, Charlie, takes pity on a victim calling for help outside their luxury home, and opens the doors to let him inside. This creates a problem when a mob arrives at the house, demanding that the Sandlins release the victim to them. James decides that he must surrender the man in order to protect his family, after the mob assures him they have equipment to break through his home’s defenses.
But this ultimately causes a deep rift with his family, who decide it’s wrong for James to let the mob kill the man. His wife, Mary, asks when this happened to them, to become so callous toward others.
James ultimately decides his family is right, and they have no choice but to fight off the intruders. Risking their own lives for the sake of a stranger.
It’s easy to detach ourselves from the needs of others. To “look out for Number One,” valuing our own safety and security above everyone else’s.
But living that way keeps us isolated from those around us, and allows a corrupt mindset to build within us. Those who participate in the Purge say that they need this release of their pent-up anger and hatred. That the only way they can free themselves of these negative thoughts and emotions is to give full vent to them for one night.
In other words, the only way to resist temptation is to give in to it. But if we all give in to temptation, no one will be safe. And if we only protect those we know, only our family and friends will be safe.
It’s our nature to be selfish and to only look after those closest to us. But we must rise above that to help and protect others, even if they’re strangers. It doesn’t matter if we know them. All that matters is that they’re fellow human beings.
If we refuse to help others in need, it makes our hearts callous. We can kid ourselves into thinking we’re kindhearted people, protecting our loved ones. But our conscience knows the truth, and so do those around us. Like James, we have to realize that sacrificing others to save our family will ultimately cause us to lose our family. To lose their love and respect, over those people we discarded to keep ourselves safe and secure.
Keep an eye out for those in need, and help where you can. In doing so, you’ll help yourself as you become a genuinely kind and caring person.
Protect one another and stay safe.
