The First Purge (2018)

This 2018 slasher is the fourth in the Purge franchise but the prequel to the entire collection – which is all available to stream on Showmax.

If you don’t know, The Purge (title of the first movie, 2013) is an annual 12-hour window where crime is lawful. Arson and assault, to rape and murder is legal.

The First Purge reveals how and why it came into effect – it starts off, like so many other disaster movies, as a social experiment where a political group pays people to stay on Staten Island, isolated from the continental US, and “let go” and do what they want… as long as they don’t mind being tracked and filmed.

You may think the franchise is tired and bored, but this grossed over $140 million on a $13 million budget. It’s brutal and in your face and racially charged. And it’s a warning for society that we could very well end up like this down the line, says Simran Hans at theguardian.com: “The Purge films are B-movies, and so this ultraviolence mostly works, though its social commentary is served a little too rare to stomach easily.”