General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Purge (2013 film)

The Purge is a 2013 American dystopian horror thriller written and directed by James DeMonaco, in which a future United States legalizes all crime, including murder, for one 12-hour period each year, and a wealthy family must survive a home invasion during that night¹. It stars Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey as James and Mary Sandin, with Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, and Rhys Wakefield in supporting roles¹. Produced by Universal Pictures, Platinum Dunes, Blumhouse Productions, and Why Not Productions, the film was made for $3 million and grossed $89,328,627 worldwide, launching a franchise of four sequels and a television series²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Release	June 7, 2013 (US, wide); May 31, 2013 (United Kingdom)²^•⁴
Director and writer	James DeMonaco, who also wrote the screenplay¹
Lead cast	Ethan Hawke (James Sandin), Lena Headey (Mary Sandin), Max Burkholder (Charlie), Adelaide Kane (Zoey), Edwin Hodge (the Bloody Stranger), Rhys Wakefield (the Polite Leader)¹
Premise	An annual government-sanctioned 12-hour period during which all criminal activity, including murder, is legal¹
Budget and gross	$3,000,000 budget; $34,058,360 domestic opening; $64,473,115 domestic; $89,328,627 worldwide²
Critical reception	Metascore 41 (mixed or average, 33 reviews); Rotten Tomatoes 41% Tomatometer, 36% Popcornmeter¹^•⁵
Rating and runtime	R (strong disturbing violence, some language); 1 hour 25 minutes¹^•⁵

Spoilers

Premise and story

The film is set in a near-future America ravaged by crime and overcrowded prisons, where the government sanctions an annual 12-hour period, Purge night, during which all criminal activity is legal and emergency services are suspended¹. The story takes place in 2022, in the fortified Los Angeles home of James Sandin, a businessman who sells home security systems, his wife Mary, and their two children, Zoey and Charlie⁶^•⁷. Just after lockdown begins, Charlie lets in a homeless man (Edwin Hodge) who is being hunted by a group of masked, thrill-kill young purgers led by the Polite Leader (Rhys Wakefield), and the family must fend off the siege while confronting neighbors who turn out to have their own motives⁸^•¹.

The film's social commentary centers on class: the wealthy hide behind expensive security systems while those who cannot afford protection are left defenseless, and the purge conveniently rids the populace of people who cannot defend themselves as well as the moneyed classes⁸. The racial undercurrent of the story has also been noted by scholars, since the horror is initiated by the image of a lone black man running through an affluent neighborhood looking for assistance, released a year after Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida⁹.

Franchise

The film's commercial return against its $3 million budget made a series inevitable, and the Purge franchise became one of Blumhouse's most successful, grossing more than half a billion dollars over five low-budget films²^•⁶. The sequels are The Purge: Anarchy (2014), The Purge: Election Year (2016), The First Purge (2018), and The Forever Purge (2021), with the first film set in 2022, Anarchy in 2023, and Election Year in 2040¹⁵^•⁷. On Rotten Tomatoes, each sequel scored higher with critics than the original: Anarchy 56%, Election Year 54%, and The First Purge 53%¹³. A television series, developed for USA and Syfy by DeMonaco, was based on the film franchise¹⁶.

A sixth film remains in development. DeMonaco, who directed the first three chapters and wrote all five films, co-wrote the script with his wife and delivered it to Blumhouse; producer Brad Fuller said in late 2025 that DeMonaco is working on the script and may direct, with Frank Grillo, star of Anarchy and Election Year, hoped to return¹⁷^•¹⁸.

Production and origin

The idea for the Purge came from a road-rage incident involving DeMonaco's usually mild-mannered wife, which, together with time the filmmaker spent in Paris, led to the concept of an annual night of legal violence¹⁰. Producer Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse Productions model cedes creative control to directors for budgets of around $5 million and releases widely through the studio system, produced alongside Sebastien K. Lemercier, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller⁶^•⁵.

DeMonaco's key structural decision was to tell the story of a very big event across the United States through one family's experience, rather than from multiple perspectives¹¹. An earlier cut of the film contained deleted Purge history and background material; DeMonaco removed it after watching the first cut, reasoning that with Universal releasing the film on 3,000 screens, audiences would object that the movie never leaves the house¹².

Reception

Critical response was mixed to negative. The film scored 41 on Metacritic based on 33 critic reviews (18% positive, 52% mixed, 30% negative) and a user score of 5.3 from 579 ratings¹. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 41% Tomatometer from 155 reviews and a 36% Popcornmeter score, with the critics consensus reading: "Half social allegory, half home-invasion thriller, The Purge attempts to make an intelligent point, but ultimately devolves into numbing violence and tired clichés"⁵. An academic tally put the film at an average critics' score of 38% out of 146 reviews counted on the site¹³.

Reviewers repeatedly praised the premise while faulting the execution. The Playlist's Drew Taylor called it "smart, scary, and subversive" (83), while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (50) wrote that DeMonaco shows a sure hand at building tension but the film devolves into a series of home-invasion clichés¹. The Los Angeles Times' Robert Abele called it a routine home invasion movie more interested in B-horror tropes and bloodletting than a thought-provoking look at class warfare⁸, and RogerEbert.com's Simon Abrams criticized paint-by-numbers dialogue, vague characterizations, and jiggling camera work during the violence¹⁴.

Legacy

Scholars have read the film as reflecting contemporary political anxieties about crime, economic collapse, and insecurity, with horror that arrives at the doorbell of suburban homes rather than in distant settings¹⁹. The film is also frequently cited among dystopian thrillers that center on the breakdown of society, alongside High-Rise, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and It Comes at Night²⁰.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026