History Film / ThePurgeUniverse

* ''[[Series/ThePurge The Purge (Series)]]'' (September 4, 2018 - December 17, 2019) - A twenty-episode television series that aired through the Creator/USANetwork. The first season is set in 2027, while the second is set a few years later.

** [[Film/ThePurgeAnarchy The sequel]], however, downplays it, with a resistance that rises up against the Founding Fathers [[spoiler:who decided that not enough people were dying, so hired some death squads to {{kill the poor}}]].

* AnarchoTyranny: The New Founding Fathers of America established the Purge once they took over the United States. It is an annual nationwide event held every March where most crime, up to and including first-degree mass murder, are legal for a 12-hour period while emergency services are illegal (or enjoying the purge), which began as a way to persecute the homeless and other vulnerable people and to maintain their grip on power by terrorizing everyone else. Naturally, The Founding Fathers and their allies are still protected by the law under the purge and are protected by armies of security personnel. In the third film, they allow Purgers to kill elected officials and nominees in order to publicly assassinate an opposing presidential candidate. [[KarmicDeath This bites them in the ass when the resistance unleashes their decades-long plans to purge them legally]]. And then when their party gets reinstated in the fifth movie, they are faced with the consequences of the very system they created as the Purgers, psychopaths of their own making to kill the undesirables, [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard wind up turning on them so that they can keep the Purge going indefinitely]]. Basically, their attempt to create controlled anarchy for their own agendas ended up creating ''actual'' anarchists.

* AnarchoTyranny: The New Founding Fathers of America established the Purge once they took over the United States. It is an annual nationwide event held every March where most crime, up to and including first-degree mass murder, are legal for a 12-hour period while emergency services are illegal (or enjoying the purge), which began as a way to persecute the homeless and other vulnerable people and to maintain their grip on power by terrorizing everyone else. Naturally, The Founding Fathers and their allies are still protected by the law under the purge and are protected by armies of security personnel. In the third film, they allow Purgers to kill elected officials and nominees in order to publicly assassinate an opposing presidential candidate. [[KarmicDeath This bites them in the ass when the resistance unleashes their decades-long plans to purge them legally]].

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: The Purge is a horrible idea in real life for several reasons (though it should be noted that, in-universe, it is quite firmly established that the government are incredibly corrupt, evil, and lying about its positive consequences, so this is [[JustifedTrope justified]]):

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: The Purge is a horrible idea in real life for several reasons (though it should be noted that, in-universe, it is quite firmly established that the government are incredibly corrupt, evil, and lying about its positive consequences, so this is {{JustifedTrope justified}}):

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: The Purge is a horrible idea in real life for several reasons (though it should be noted that, in-universe, it is quite firmly established that the government are incredibly corrupt, evil, and lying about its positive consequences, so this is {{justified}}):

** MenacingMask: The teenagers who break into the Sandins' house during the Purge wear creepy rubber masks with [[SlasherSmile Slasher Smiles]].

* HumansAreBastards: The basic premise. The monsters in this franchise aren't demons, aren't supernatural, unkillable killers, they aren't TheUndead. No, they are normal, regular people who gleefully reveal themselves to be psychopathic sadists. The only reason why America in this movie is so stable is because once a year, everyone can let their pent-up predatory/sadistic instincts for one day.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: The basic premise. The monsters in this franchise aren't demons, aren't supernatural, unkillable killers, they aren't TheUndead. No, they are normal, regular people who gleefully reveal themselves to be psychopathic sadists. The only reason why America in this movie is so stable is because once a year, everyone can let their pent-up predatory/sadistic instincts for one day.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Largely applies over the series as a whole, with sequels addressing logical concerns derived from the series premise, whereas in the original film the whole concept of the Purge was largely an ExcusePlot to justify the film's concept of "a family is trapped in their home, besieged by murderous psychos, and can only survive through their own skill and wits".
** Firstly, there's the idea that LegalizedEvil would actually result exclusively in people going on sprees of random violence and killing. The subsequent films actually show that most people ''don't'' use the Purge as an excuse to go on a killing spree: ''Film/ThePurgeElectionYear'' establishes that 99% of Americans stay at home on Purge Night, and this is 25 years ''after'' the Purge was established! Series {{prequel}} ''Film/TheFirstPurge'' establishes that the first Purge Night actually largely ''was'' a nonviolent night, with the vast majority of crimes being things like streaking, drug use, wild parties, orgies and looting. [[spoiler:It's established as early as the second film, ''Film/ThePurgeAnarchy'', that the government is actually manipulating events to ''make'' the Purge be associated with wide-spread violence and killing, through a combination of deploying mercenary kill-teams to artificially inflate the body count and good old propaganda.]]
** Secondly, whilst eventually the Purge ''does'' become associated with killing and slaughter, it takes ''years'' of non-stop cultural manipulation to push the narrative and normalize the idea, with it largely taking root amongst the young or those who already had criminal inclinations.
** Thirdly, as established in ''Film/ThePurgeElectionYear'', forbidding paramedics and police to work on Purge Night would actually not work; the truly dedicated would instead go out and fight the Purge as vigilantes. Likewise, people with altruistic natures would come together to form vigilante groups attempting to curtail the worst of the Purgers.
** Fourthly, people from the most at-risk backgrounds would ultimately band together increasingly for self-defense.

** Because of the way the Purge works, the primary targets would be the homeless, poor, and basically everyone working in the service industry. In other words, '''80%''' of all employed and potential employees. This is also reflected in the stated one percent level of unemployment, which signifies a stagnating rather than booming economy. There would still be demand for employees, but very low supply, which drives wages up when businesses compete for employees, and then they are forced to raise prices of whatever they produce to pay these wages. Someone must have realized this (or read this page) when making the second film because the unemployment number is bumped up to five percent. This is why killing poor people, in general, is an economically idiotic idea. It's also why full or near-full employment causes higher wages, as with fewer unemployed people existing workers can demand better pay and benefits without fear of being laid off (this last occurred in the late 2010s in the US).

** As online critics pointed out, the idea of the Purge takes HobbesWasRight to its extreme, suggesting most humans have that "every man for himself" mindset when there are no established laws. History tells us otherwise. Humanity wouldn't progress in the very first place if they don't possess any semblance of community. Trust, teamwork, and collaboration are essential to how the human species developed into an advanced society over tens of thousands of years. If the Annual Purge actually happens in real life, vast majority of people would be far-sighted just enough to recognize their 12-hour "freedom" doesn't mean they are free from the community's treatment for the rest of the 364 days. It is also far more likely a neighborhood would band together to protect themselves from any outside danger. Together with the notion that vigilantes and duty-minded police would be free to do anything to troublemakers they caught, a 12-hour Purge can ironically be a really '''BAD''' time to be an asshole. The result would likely be higher counts of violent incidents scattered across different parts of the country, but not any more intense than what normal society regularly faces. The idea that a 12-hour lawless period would have advanced societies descending into mindless violence is ridiculous when you consider that history repeatedly demonstrates less advanced societies can function for longer periods without an established rule of the law. The NFFA would be political idiots in real life for thinking this is an efficient way of killing the poor, and the franchise finally addressed this in Film/TheFirstPurge.
** The psychology behind catharsis is more nuanced. Generally speaking, greater aggression only increases aggression in the long run... unless the aggressor can truly identify the one and only root cause of his/her anger and act on completely eliminating that root cause - Which isn't as easy as it sounds or might even be impractical because in real life, humans get exposed to way too many events that anger them, and worse still, the "an eye for an eye" idea tends to be ignored and people can often do [[DisproportionateRetribution worse things than what had been done to them]]. To this franchise's credit, Film/TheForeverPurge had shown that in the long run, the violence did became worse and spilled over outside of the 12 hour period, but still, the takeaway here is that the film's perception of catharsis isn't fully sound.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: The basic premise. The monsters in this franchise aren't demons, aren't supernatural, unkillable killers, they aren't TheUndead. No, they are normal, regular people who gleefully reveal themselves to be psychopathic sadists.

* BigBad: The New Founding Fathers of America are the OverarchingVillain of the series with the antagonists of the films and TV show tied back to them.

** ''The First Purge'' - Arlo Sabian and Dr. May Update

''The Purge'' is an American action horror franchise, spanning both feature films and a TV series.

* ArtisticLicensePolitics: As many online critics had pointed out, the films in general seem to take HobbesWasRight to its extreme, suggesting most humans have that "every man for himself" mindset when there are no established laws. History tells us otherwise. Humanity wouldn't progress in the very first place if they don't possess any semblance of community. Trust, teamwork, and collaboration are essential to how the human species developed into an advanced society over tens of thousands of years. If the Annual Purge actually happens in real life, vast majority of people would be far-sighted just enough to recognize their 12-hour "freedom" doesn't mean they are free from the community's treatment for the rest of the 364 days. It is also far more likely a neighborhood would band together to protect themselves from any outside danger. Together with the notion that vigilantes and duty-minded police would be free to do anything to troublemakers they caught, a 12-hour Purge can ironically be a really '''BAD''' time to be an asshole. The result would likely be higher counts of violent incidents scattered across different parts of the country, but not any more intense than what normal society regularly faces. The idea that a 12-hour lawless period would have advanced societies descending into mindless violence is ridiculous when you consider that history repeatedly demonstrates less advanced societies can function for longer periods without an established rule of the law. The NFFA would be political idiots in real life for thinking this is an efficient way of killing the poor, and the franchise finally addressed this in Film/TheFirstPurge.

* ArtisticLicensePolitics: As many online critics had pointed out, the films in general seem to take HobbesWasRight to its extreme, suggesting most humans have that "every man for himself" mindset when there are no established laws. History tells us otherwise. Humanity wouldn't progress in the very first place if they don't possess any semblance of community. Trust, teamwork, and collaboration are essential to how the human species developed into an advanced society over tens of thousands of years. If the Annual Purge actually happens in real life, vast majority of people would be far-sighted just enough to recognize that their 12-hour "freedom" doesn't mean they are free from the community's treatment for the rest of the 364 days. It is also far more likely most neighborhoods would band together to protect themselves from any outside danger. Together with the notion that vigilantes and duty-minded police would be free to do anything to troublemakers they caught, a 12-hour Purge can ironically be a really '''BAD''' time to be an asshole. And this still applies even considering a scenario that felonies are punishable by death for the other 364 days. The result would likely be higher counts of violent incidents scattered across different parts of the country, but not any more intense than what normal society regularly faces. The idea that a 12-hour lawless period would have advanced societies descending into mindless violence is ridiculous when you consider that history repeatedly demonstrates less advanced societies can function for longer periods without an established rule of the law. The NFFA would be political idiots in real life for thinking this is an efficient way of killing the poor, although in the movies this can be HandWaved via the reveal that the NFFA is sponsoring some of these violence.