The First Purge Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

2. All The Unintentional Comedy

These films have never exactly had a perfect handle on their tone, amping up the carnage to such tasteless and ludicrous levels that, sometimes, the only response is to let out a perverse chuckle.

This fourth movie finally tips the balance unambiguously in the wrong direction, by doubling down on the hammy silliness to the point where it's genuinely accidentally hilarious, and therefore clashes jarringly with the apparent "seriousness" of all the murder and mayhem.

The primary culprit is a mentally unstable drug addict named Skeletor (Rotimi Paul), whose psychotic behaviour is just as likely to elicit laughs as it is raised eyebrows and genuine terror.

Here overacting and daft writing conspire to completely upend the movie's tone and leave audiences unsure of exactly what they're supposed to feel.