The First Purge Could Finally Reveal the Logic of Everyone Murdering Their Neighbors for Funzies

At Jezebel, we like to hash out the logic of film franchise The Purge on a regular basis and now it’s almost like the trailer for The First Purge has been reading our Slack.

You’ve also probably wondered why people don’t take the 12 hours where all crime is legal to just steal a bunch of shit and party. Why does everyone jump straight to murder? Do we all want to kill that much, for no reason? According to The First Purge, we don’t and it actually takes military agitators to get the blood flowing. The trailer opens with the announcement of the first official Purge, then montages over the history of the transformative tradition of stabbing your neighbors once a year. An icy blonde Marisa Tomei surveys the launch of her Purge campaign from some sort of government headquarters, amped for a night of cleansing mayhem and newly invigorated by an interview with Van Jones.

But there’s a wrench in her plan—activists are discouraging their community from murdering! People are planning keggers instead of beatings! But the Purge “has to work” so the government sends in disguised soldiers to kill ordinary citizens who are just trying to kick back and drink under the legal age limit. How tremendously unchill, especially when one of those citizens is hot Daniel from Insecure. As ridiculous as the concept of the Purge may be, the idea that the government would force people to fight for their lives to join an insane bureaucratic initiative is too real. Well played, The Purge. Well played.