Assassination Nation (2018) review

A hacker in the town of Salem is exceptionally skilled at digging up scandalous information on its residents, starting with the married Mayor (who has dalliances with men), then high school Principal Turrell (Colman Domingo) and eventually student Lily (Odessa Young) is blamed for the leaks, which simultaneously drags in her best friends Sarah (Suki Waterhouse), Bex (Hari Nef) and Em (Abra); things escalate once the police call for Lily to be captured and many locals want revenge.  The opening sequence (complete with a Spoiler Alert!) is influenced by Gaspar Noé, then it shifts into horny girl gossip-fest before, in the last act, becoming a gore-soaked riff on The Purge, in which the ladies acquire weapons and have to defend themselves from the hordes.  Amidst the gaudiness and silly dialogue is, however, a very timely point about the importance of privacy in a world where secrets can be exposed and lives can be ruined by an individual (or a collective) with too much free time and no sense of morality.  If this exists merely as a warm-up for Levinson's exceptional series Euphoria ... so be it.