New Trailer for ‘The First Purge’ Draws Alarming Parallels to Donald Trump’s Political Rhetoric
It is no secret that, as James DeMonaco’s dystopian horror film franchise grows, the creators of The Purge have drawn increasingly explicit parallels with real political events.
The upcoming fourth instalment in the series is due to be a sequel to the existing trilogy. It will document the movement that brought the United States of America to the point of electing the totalitarian political party, the New Founding Fathers of America, who introduced the new national annual tradition ‘The Purge’.
Embracing an all new depth of social commentary, The Final Purge has not pulled any punches with its marketing, with every new sliver of information drops throws shade directly at current President of the United States Donald Trump.
The posters are simple yet provocative, showing a simple red cap emblazoned with the phrase “THE LAST PURGE”. It’s impossible to see it without thinking about the near identical caps worn by Trump supporters that boast his now famous tag line “Make America Great Again”.
The latest trailer takes this even further.
It is structured similarly to the kind of right wing advertising that appeals of ‘traditional family values’ and ‘American ideals’ and general nationalist principles. It talks about a major event that brings families across America together. It refers to the American people as a community separate from the outside world, and better.
Although it obviously wasn’t thrown together quickly enough for the two to be directly linked, the trailer holds a haunting mirror up to comments made by Donald Trump just yesterday.
On January 30th 2018, just hours before his first State of the Union, Trump spoke about tackling the “tremendous divisiveness” currently afflicting the country, saying: “I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity. Without a major event where people pull together, that’s hard to do.”
This kind of rhetoric is terrifyingly similar to the language used in the new trailer, which even directly quotes the Trump organisation’s own favourite phrase “Make America Great Again”.
As the political message behind the franchise has become more apparent, it has only grown in popularity and this latest instalment looks to be the most chilling one yet.
Although James DeMonaco is writing the script, he has stepped down from directing the series, which will instead be done by Gerard McMurray. Y’Lan Noel and Lex Scott Davis will star, with a team of all star producers including Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form and Sebastian Lemercier also involved.
Fittingly, The First Purge is due to be released on July 4th 2018.
