I vaguely remembered these films and couldn't recall any of them outside of the original so I ruined the last five evenings by watching them.
Turns out the same guy wrote all 5 of them. He directed the first three but you can tell as he got more freedom the woke shit began multiplying.
The arc is actually incredibly stupid if you take a moment to think about it. The original was successful for one reason: it was a basic 'home invasion' film with an interesting concept to set the film in motion.
That interesting concept is why people came and checked out what is essentially a soulless copy paste of a plot. It is the SOLE REASON for the success of the entire series.
This must have pissed off the writer because every sequel he chips away at that interesting concept, making it lamer and lamer. Instead of film sequels that add onto the mythology he manages to destroy it and make it all less interesting each film, which in itself is astonishingly arrogant of the writer.
So Purge 1: watchable but is the usual white = bad guy black = good guy. Purge 2: Minorities everywhere, purge more about race and less about social status, white guy still bad. Purge 3: election purge, meaning all about white guys in politics, white woman in politics = savior.
I'm going to take a moment here to point out what is by far the most annoying thing about Purge 3: it is set in Staten Island NYC. That place is like 90% white Italian guys. Even now it is by far the majority. It is the whitest area of NYC and the fact that they set the Purge 3 in Staten Island is actually believable because that place is a shithole. What is NOT believable is that you have 50-80 black gang characters who all hang out with black people in black establishments in STATEN FUCKING ISLAND. Holy shit it was so sad to see, the writer is either a true hack and didn't even look up the demographics or didn't give a shit.
Also in Purge 3 all the black gang members end up being the good guys and are only helping the community and each other which is a hilarious cope. This guy is writing his delusions into his films. Funnily enough Purge 3 ends with the white savior female politician winning the election (of course) and banning the Purge.
Writer fucked up and wrote himself into a corner right? Nope, PREQUAL TIME! But at least they don't let the same hack who wrote/directed the first 3 direct again, so they get a black guy with basically no experience to 'direct' it.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2618764/?ref_=tt_ov_dr
"The First Purge" is really just painful to sit through. It totally destroys the entire concept of the Purge making all three original films pointless and stupid. It tries to show black people as kind and nonviolent and the Government Nazi far right exclusively white goons as the 'purgers' and essentially blame the entire thing on Republicans. It is BAD.
But what comes next is something awe inspiring.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10327252/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_purge%25205
"The Forever Purge". If you showed me this film and didn't tell me it was the same writer I'd tell you it is satire mocking the first four films. It is so amazingly over the top, so incredibly stupid, so unbelievably woke...everything is so bad that it feels intentionally done like a mockumentary of the entire series.
Everyone should watch this movie (don't pay a fucking cent for it). It really is a pinnacle of just how terrible and woke horror films can get. There are so many tremendously huge plot holes in it that I can't even begin to list them. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen.
Don't watch this series, but if you do watch The Forever Purge and marvel at just how low a film can sink.
Sorry but even without the woke stuff which I didn't know about and I haven't watched the purge it all seemed totally implausible to me like most horror scenarios. They're relying on shock value rather than making anything genuinely creepy or believable.
When you think about it for five seconds they're going "Okay, anything goes in this zone at a certain time" well what exactly is stopping the population in these zones from doing an arms build up against the military if they're the ones doing the enforcing of this stupid bullshit people would probably be more inclined to take up arms against the military. There's only so many psychopaths out there and realistically if people banded together the psychopaths would be dead in seconds if people were able to freely kill them and defend themselves.
Definitely unintentionally, it's a bit of a commentary that on the absolute state of law and order in the west. Since in any other society criminals would be dead and buried for behaving the way they do. It's the law that protects them and stops people from defending themselves.
Again, this bad writing ignores the whole concept of an underground arms build up.