If you want to be superficial, The Purge’s lesson is don’t have kids in a dystopian society. I think that the marketing is extremely clever. You go into the movie expecting The Strangers on an epic, national scale, but The Purge ends up being a political/racial/socioeconomic metaphor about who we treat as human beings and how dehumanizing people affects us. All good horror movies tap into the anxieties of its viewers’ times, but The Purge was missing a certain je ne sais quoi (think Night of the Living Dead or The Mist) and failed to fully deliver. Perhaps it needed a bleaker ending or to really get savage-have a family that hunts and decides to stay in. How can you cast Lena Headley, who has played Sarah Connor from The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Queen Gorgo of 300 or Cersei Lannister of Game of Thrones, and only give her one moment to show her chops.