A certain someone seems to have been binging horror movies this weekend, if his latest harebrained idea for cracking down on crime is anything to go by.

At a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Sunday, Donald Trump shared with the crowd his not-so-brilliant scheme for discouraging shoplifting. After claiming that crime is rising across the country, Trump suggested allowing for “one real rough, nasty day.”

“If you had one really violent day,” he continued. “One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately.”

No, your ears aren’t deceiving you. Trump genuinely suggested a day of state-sanctioned violence, the exact premise of horror franchise The Purge. In those films, all crime becomes legal for an annual 24-hour period in the hopes of driving down crime the rest of the year, leading to violent mayhem throughout America. It’s meant to be a cautionary satire — but to hear Trump tell it, it was more of a roadmap for his vision of the next four years should he take office.

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Like most of Trump’s statements, his exact meaning wasn’t clear: Was he suggesting that Americans should be allowed to get all criminal tendencies out of their system at once, or did he mean that police should be allowed to practice unrestrained violence on civilians? Several folks thought he meant the latter, aka a repeat of Kristallnacht. Either way, his plan sounds more like a gory Hollywood hit than a proposal from a presidential candidate.

Naturally, the internet couldn’t believe its collective eyes at Trump’s speech. Some thought it meant Trump was preparing for a repeat of the January 6 insurrection, while others saw it as a sign he was finally losing it (even more so than usual). Regardless, we can all agree we’d rather keep The Purge a work of fiction.

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