In new Blumhouse release The First Purge, an Easter egg references the company's upcoming Halloween sequel, creating a plot hole in the process. The success of Blumhouse Productions exemplifies just how consistent a market there is for horror films. Unlike most other genres, fright fans are willing to see almost anything, as long as it looks to promise them a good amount of scares, blood, and suspense. Among Blumhouse's stable, one of the biggest standouts is the Purge franchise, which managed to turn a high concept home invasion thriller into a franchise of four films and a soon-to-debut TV series.

This year, Blumhouse takes a brief detour from creating its own big franchises - Purge, Insidious, Sinister - to try and resurrect one of the longest-running horror properties in movie history: Halloween. The new film is a direct sequel to John Carpenter's classic 1978 original, ignoring the seven sequels and two Rob Zombie remakes to have hit theaters over the past 40 years. Whether or not starting fresh will work out for Halloween (2018) remains to be seen, but trailers and images so far have looked quite promising.

In a nice bit of both corporate synergy and nodding to horror fans, The First Purge includes a Halloween Easter egg. Near the start of the movie, the character Isaiah (Joivan Wade), is seen in his room prior to heading out to participate in the violent festivities. On the wall is the poster for Halloween (2018), featuring Haddonfield's resident slasher Michael Myers. It's a cool moment, but unfortunately, it also introduces quite the plot hole into the mix.

In 2013's original Purge film, it's made explicit that the story is set in 2022, by which time America has devolved into a dystopian future. The film also makes clear that the first ever Purge happened in March 2017, shortly after the ascension of horrifically corrupt political party The New Founding Fathers into power. While The First Purge's world obviously isn't an exact recreation of reality, it's close enough that it directly makes reference to real-world events like America's 2008 economic recession in the film's opening sequence.

With that in mind, inserting a poster for a 2018 film into a story set over eighteen months prior instantly introduces a plot hole that's basically impossible to reconcile. While Blumhouse's intent was likely just to promote an upcoming movie, it's surprising that none of the creative people involved with The First Purge noticed the mistake and insisted a different poster - perhaps from an earlier Halloween - be used, especially producer/writer James DeMonaco, who directed and wrote the first three Purge films. Of course, it's possible that DeMonaco and the studio did notice, but assumed it was small enough to not have an impact.

More: The Purge Movie Timeline Explained: 2014 - 2040

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