Every once in a while, the horror community is forced to collectively groan when someone blames a horror movie for their criminal actions. HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, CHILD'S PLAY, they've all been scapegoated, and there are those in the media who then ponder if the movies really are to blame, while most horror fans draw a very clear line between real violence and movie violence. I love to see blood dripping down the screen in a movie, but the only time I want to see gore is when I'm watching a fictional film. There are even special effects artists who can work on the bloodiest movies being made today but still get queasy if they see the real thing. We all know, horror fandom and violent tendencies do not go hand-in-hand. As said in SCREAM (another film that has been blamed for a crime), "Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative."
The latest film to get tied into a criminal investigation is THE PURGE. A 19-year-old man in Indianapolis has been arrested after allegedly going on a four day crime spree that included armed robbery, intimidation, robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, and three murders. In all, seventeen charges have been filed against him.
Over the course of those four days, he would repeatedly brag that he had been "Purging", showing off pictures and videos of the crimes, saying to one acquaintance "I Purge every night now." He even sent screen shots of news reports covering his crimes to his mother.
As most of you reading this probably know, the PURGE franchise is set in the United States a few years into the future, when crime rates have dropped drastically thanks to Purge Night, a twelve hour period during which all crimes are made legal. The idea is that Americans get all of their criminal desires – murder, rape, robbery, whatever it may be – out of their system during those twelve hours, then they're good for the next year.
This guy apparently felt he needed more than twelve hours for his Purge, and clearly missed the fact that a Purge spree is only something you can get away with in fiction. Now he can probably expect to spend a long time, possibly the rest of his life, in prison.
While he's in there, he's going to miss the July 1st release of THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR.