The Purge Sequel Gets A Boring Subtitle

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

the purge 22013’s low-budget dystopian horror film The Purge may have taken a critical lashing, but when your movie only costs $3 million, and rakes in $89 million worldwide, that’s one hell of a profit. An almost 30-fold return on your initial investment is a damn good way to ensure that you get a sequel, and Universal and Blumhouse Productions are cranking one out before people even realize what’s going on. The Purge 2 drops in June and, contrary to popular belief, it’s coming with a subtitle. It’s not even really called The Purge 2. I know you’ve been waiting for this one, and there’s also a minute-and-a-half trailer that should be along shortly.

Yesterday there was a big too doo about the sequel not having a subtitle. Why that was an issue for anyone is a mystery, but people will argue about anything given the chance. And that doesn’t matter because now we have a definitive answer, thanks to Shock Til You Drop’s report that the sequel will in fact have a subtitle, and the film will henceforth be known as The Purge: Anarchy. Let that one wash over you for a moment.

That certainly is a title. Generically menacing, yet not particularly specific, or interesting. I’d be willing to bet there were also potential names like The Purge: Chaos, The Purge: Menace, and The Purge: Bedlam in the mix. Maybe those will come down the pipe eventually. They missed the boat not going with The Purge: Kerfuffle. That one really rolls off the tongue.

James DeMonaco, who wrote and directed the first film, which starred Ethan Hawke and Lena Heady, is back in the same capacity on Anarchy. That film is set in a world where, in an effort to combat rampant crime, the government institutes a policy where for one night a year, anything goes. Murder, robbery, jaywalking, you name it, it’s all legal for twelve bloody hours. Apparently this collective venting of all of our darker tendencies is enough to drive crime rates to an all-time low. The action follows one family in a well to do neighborhood and chronicles their troubles after their security system fails to keep them very secure.

Anarchy takes a different approach, looking at the situation from a different perspective on the same night. Instead of following a bunch of well off suburbanites, the Purge goes down in the inner city, where there are no security systems. The result is like an apocalyptic battlefield, where everyone is just trying to survive the night. It’s easy to imagine the finished product looking like news footage from a large-scale riot. That’s sure to be a reference point.

The Purge: Anarchy opens in theaters on June 20, and stars Frank Grillo, Michael K. Williams, Zach Gilford, Carmen Ejogo, and Kiele Sanchez.