‘The Purge 2: Anarchy’ Trailer: Just Stay Inside Your Homes, Okay, You Guys?

By  · Published on March 28th, 2014

Universal Pictures

“If you’re not purging, we advise you to get off the streets as quickly as possible.”

Here’s the thing about The Purge (the fictious day that The Purge films, now blossoming into one heck of a franchise, centers on) – it seems easy enough to avoid. Just stay inside. Hide in a closet with a weapon and ride it out. Get an alarm system. Don’t look out your windows. Hey, maybe even get out of town? Or, at the very least, why not take the whole day leading up to the crime-addled night off, so that you might have some small smidgen of hope that you’ll be off the streets when it starts? See! Easy! Just stay inside, you guys.

Of course, we’ve already learned that staying inside – even with all the trappings a big-ass security system and a good plan can provide – doesn’t always work. James DeMonaco’s The Purge (last year’s surprise horror hit) saw a family attempt just that, and it didn’t really pan out for them. So if literal security can’t save you during the Purge, what can? Perhaps Frank Grillo, as the tough-talking leading-man-in-the-making provides a sliver of salvation in the latest trailer for The Purge 2: Anarchy.

The next installment of the new franchise – emphasis on anarchy! – quite effectively blows out the world of The Purge. While the first film was set inside a single home on the one night of the year when all crime is legal, The Purge 2: Anarchy takes it to the streets. The idiotic, totally stupid, deeply hopeless streets. Stay inside.

If you’re on the streets on Purge night, one of two things are going to happen: you’re going to commit a crime, or someone will commit a crime against you. But what if you can do both? It sure looks like Frank Grillo’s nameless character is hitting the streets on a mission – from the looks of his sad collage, it looks to be for revenge – before stumbling upon something truly shocking: crime! Crime on Purge night! No! Heavens! Grillo has to make a choice: should he help out some troubled people who look to be total innocents, or just keep going on his mission?

You can guess what happens next. He helps. But that “help” doesn’t help for very long, because it only sets off still more crime.

This is a night dedicated to crime, there’s just going to be a lot of bad stuff going down. But can it be survived? And, moreover, can it be avenged?

The Purge 2: Anarchy opens on July 18.