Not the Game Changer It Claims to Be

Rating: 6/10 (14 June 2012)

(LOTS of SPOILERS!) This is yet another movie I can't review without giving out important plot details! So, I'm going to review the movie as if you've seen it and are wondering what other people think.
This film has been billed as a "game changer" that changes horror movies forever, or upends all of horror movie conventions. Well, it doesn't. It has fun with them, yes, but that's about the extent of it. Plus, it sounded like there was one surprise after another in the plot. But, before long, you know what's going on. You figure out that these office dudes are conducting ritual sacrifices for some monster, or even the devil himself. And, that carries through to the end of the film. So, maybe one kind-of surprise, but that's it.
Where the movie works is in its dark humor, at times pitch black humor! The jokes the two guys make as they're setting up the young ones for imminent slaughter are very funny, and very dark! Plus, this humor continues through the film, but only sporadically after about the half-way point. The film goes from dark-humored horror to straight horror with some dark humor added in. I think the writers didn't want to carry through on the first half and turned to blood and gore for the second.
There are parts in the second half that are laugh-out-loud funny, like when the monsters arrive on the elevators. You know they're going to spring forth and kill everyone. But, when the elevators go "ding!" in that typically cheerful way, the monsters coming out is given a lot of extra punch, and adding laughs too. The hilariously goof-ball appearance of the "Purge Monsters" button is like every movie where a ship just happens to have a self destruct system. A super-easy way to kill off the baddies!
I had been wondering up to about the two-thirds or so mark why the film was rated R. Then, the monsters come out and slaughter everyone in giant geysers of blood and body parts, culminating with a silent room of slaughter, with one limb going "splat!" to the ground. Then, I understood the R rating!
Overall, a good, interesting movie. But, it was half hearted, going for pretty much straight horror at the half-way point, and not following through with the dark humor of the first. The ending did help, since it was super dark! Two people deciding "aw, screw it" and not sacrificing themselves but allowing the world to end instead is about as dark as it gets!
6 out of 10 Stars (******)