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Terror reached a new level of racial awareness in parallel with the growth of BLM. PHOTOGRAPHY: Candyman and The Forever Purge
Horror has reached a new level of racial awareness parallel with the growth of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Photos: Candyman and The Forever Purge

'The Forever Purge': What can the Latinos expect from horror films in 2021?

The coronavirus delay of the end of the lucrative survival horror saga has raised questions about the involvement of the Latinos in American terror.

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The Forever Purge, the fifth episode of The Purge franchise launched in 2013 by James DeMonaco, has been delayed again until the summer of 2021.

Not only does it raise doubts about the final tone of the saga, but it also means that its premiere, originally intended for 2020, will release in an industry deeply-affected by the Black Lives Matter movement, raising questions about the role of Latinos in the latest film.

Among the upcoming releases is the resurrection of Leather Face, new deliveries in the Escape Room and Paranormal Activity series, more gore from Nicolas Cage (Wally's Wonderland) and the heirs of Jigsaw in the return of Saw with Chris Rock as the new protagonist.

Always capable of capturing collective fears and paranoia, horror also reached a new quota of racial awareness parallel with the growth of Black Lives Matter.

The greatest example of this growth is the explosion of director Jordan Peele, which started with Get Out in 2017, and has since become exemplary of the racist paranoia seen in recent years. Horror has always been there as a metaphor for "Otherness," and the genre is now a tool to highlight experiences and perspectives not often shown on the big screen.

One is to certify that racism was still more latent than ever and the rise of extreme right-wing groups, as shown in Peele's Us from 2019 and 2020's successful, but revisionist series, Lovecraft Country.

Peele's successes could continue this year with the expected remake of Candyman, a cult Black horror film from 1992, which could come alongside new adaptations of novelist Clive Barker in Hellraiser and Nightbreed.

Since the beginning of The Purge and throughout its four previous films (and one series), the idea of a government of insurgents that allow crime for 12 hours has become too close to reality. It won't be the most intense or the bloodiest saga of the decade, but socially, it is the scariest.

Another of its successes is to raise a challenge to racism and genocide. Its misapplied sociology on population excesses appears in all kinds of films (in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for example) to the extent that demographic metaphors are part of a populist discourse.

The Forever Purge does not have a trailer yet, but the synopsis follows Adela and Juan, who must escape from a Mexican cartel at a ranch in Texas.

It could be the chance for the saga to redeem itself in some respects and take into account that institutional racism also includes Latinos, Asians or other minorities. It could also end up being a broken record of more stereotypes or doing what Get Out did for the African-American community.

On the bright side, James de Monaco is returning to write the release, after he left during The Purge: Anarchy (2014), and the director will be Everardo Valerio Gout, the Mexican responsible for Días de gracia (2011).

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