So far, 2018 has seen some great horror movies come and go. Between Insidious: The Last Key, A Quiet Place and Hereditary (to name a few), there has been no shortage of scary romps to terrify audiences. One of the next films on the agenda is The First Purge, and the film has finally received an MPAA rating ahead of its July 4 release. On that note, make sure to leave the kids at home, because this one's getting an R rating for a wide variety of reasons. Specifically, it's earned its rating for:
R for strong disturbing violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use.
Anything goes on Purge night, and the MPAA rating for The First Purge makes it seem like we can expect a lot of intense moments that cover many of the bases of the R-rating. With The First Purge featuring everything from violence and foul language to sexuality and drugs, it leads one to assume that we may see all manner of crime take place in the prequel. Previous entries in the Purge franchise have all been rated R as well, so it's not necessarily too surprising to learn that The First Purge has received a similar classification.
The decision to make The First Purge an R-rated film makes sense when we consider the Blumhouse MO for how the horror studio approaches its ratings. When Blumhouse knows that it's making a movie that is primarily aimed at teenagers (such as Happy Death Day or Truth or Dare), then it tends to aim for the PG-13 rating. However, movies about adult characters dealing with adult circumstances (such as Get Out) tend to get the hard-R rating. The Purge movies generally revolve around adults coping with hard-hitting life or death scenarios, so the R classification lines up with previous examples from the Blumhouse filmography.
Another element of The First Purge's rating that's worth addressing is the fact that the violence and intensity may be a two-way street. Though previous installments in the Purge franchise have followed scrappy survivors attempting to fight back against the people who embrace the lawless nature of the evening, what we know about The First Purge suggests that we will see a much more capable hero this time around. In fact, while speaking to producer Andrew Form about The First Purge earlier this year during the release of A Quiet Place, CinemaBlend learned that the fourth installment in the Purge series would feature an incredibly "badass" hero in a far more "personal" story. That idea seems to be backed up by what we have seen in the trailers, which shows a group of people rising up to take on the government soldiers who infiltrate the island to commit atrocities.
Audiences will get a chance to see the first-ever Purge on the big screen next month when The First Purge debuts in theaters on July 4. Make sure to check it out, and remember, purge and purify.
