Movie review
July 4, 2018 · 97 min · R
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The First Purge.
Woke representation / casting
Casting centers black actors as the primary heroes and community voices in a story built around racial marginalization and resistance, creating noticeable identity emphasis that aligns with but also amplifies the premise.
Woke political dialogue
Multiple scenes feature explicit activist speeches, media framing of the poor as societal problems, and direct references to real political figures and events that function as contemporary commentary.
Identity-driven story themes
The narrative is structured around black residents collectively resisting racially targeted government violence and class oppression, with identity and marginalization as core drivers of conflict and heroism.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film portrays American political leadership and institutions as corrupt, racist tools of elite power that exploit racial divisions and target minorities, using direct modern parallels to real-world conservative figures and policies.
Review
The First Purge is a 2018 prequel that explains the origin of the annual Purge as a 12-hour government experiment run by the New Founding Fathers of America on Staten Island. Poor residents receive payment to stay while all crime becomes legal, but the test quickly turns into engineered chaos when officials send in mercenaries to force results. The story follows black protagonists including a community activist, her brother, and a drug lord as they fight back against what the film frames as targeted racial and economic oppression by a right-wing political party and its agents.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Reviewers and audience members on multiple platforms criticized the film as preachy propaganda, one-sided in its racial and political portrayals, and guilty of turning the horror premise into explicit social justice messaging.
Creator track record context
Writer James DeMonaco has built the Purge series around progressive critiques of inequality and power; director Gerard McMurray previously contributed to Fruitvale Station on racial injustice themes; producer Jason Blum has engaged in political commentary.
Production
