The Purge is rapidly becoming the horror franchise that defines 2020. Earlier this year, a police department in Louisiana was caught playing the signature ‘Purge’ siren to mark the start of COVID-19 lockdowns, and now the famous Purge announcement speech is been being played by protestors on the streets of New York City.
As seen in a video posted by Twitter user Milteezy, a van rolled up with an impressive sound system and began blasting a dance remix of the speech (which I think is “The Purge (Remix)” by Dyne).
Van pulls up and gives the purge speech on burnside pic.twitter.com/yk58ROVpqw
— Ser (@milteezy) June 2, 2020
The song plays out to a chaotic background of burning debris, general anarchy and lawlessness as people express their frustrations with the racism of the New York Police Department and protest the murder of George Floyd. And honestly, they couldn’t have picked a better movie to reference. As the Purge series has developed, the films have become explicitly political, finding their feet as a scarily accurate mirror for Trump-era America.
The most recent entry, 2018’s The First Purge, is easily the most relevant. It takes place on Staten Island, all its heroes are people of color and the villains are racists dressed as the Klan and Nazis. It concludes that the only way to stop a racist authoritarian government is to take to the streets and ensure that you cannot and will not be ignored. It’s well worth a watch.
All of which makes the next film in the franchise –Â The Forever Purge –Â one to look out for. This is intended to be the final entry in the Purge series and was originally scheduled to be released in just a month’s time, on July 10th. Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused it to be indefinitely delayed. Let’s hope not for too long, though, because the no compromises political stance that these films take couldn’t be more appropriate to the societal transformation taking place before our eyes.
