The First Purge Trailer Finally Clarifies Where The Deadly Tradition Came From

The trailer for The First Purge is here, and we are finally getting an origin story for the horrifying night of legalized crime.


The fourth film in The Purge franchise follows The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, though it serves as a prequel, allowing us to bear witness to the initial ever purge.


We learn that Dr. May Updale (Marisa Tomei, nevertheless without apparent relation to Spider-Man's Aunt May) was the mastermind in back of the experiment, meant to be a "psychological" device. "If we desire to save our nation we must release all our anger in one night," she explains to a reporter (played by Van Jones).


In the trailer, the inaugural event is met by protests and a gang of neighborhood protectors, while most people's idea of breaking the law demands wild parties. That's as soon as the nefarious New Founding Fathers of America send in the clowns — or the military disguised as citizens — to stir things up. Dr. Updale is aghast, while blood, explosions, and chaos erupt outside.


Yet the citizens won't go down without a fight.


The First Purge hits theaters on Wednesday, July 4.