At one point in "The Purge," a horror film in which Americans are legally allowed to commit crime one night per year, a character laments that "things will never be the same ever again." The line is cringe-worthy given that the character just watched people she loves hurt somebody without hesitation, yet you don't know anyone in the film well enough to care one way or another, and the camera jiggled so much during the violence that you only got teasing, migraine-inducing impressions of the act. Advertisement Writer/director James DeMonaco, who previously scripted the surprisingly effective 2005 remake of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," cuts creative corners this way throughout "The Purge." He often confuses economical story-telling with paint-by-numbers dialogue and vague characterizations. So instead of being a creepy B-movie about the necessity of suppressing one's animalistic urges, "The Purge" is just an uninspired film.