The Warriors (1979)

If you were to look up an example of what a "cult" movie is I think you would first run into the Star Wars franchise, then perhaps the Evil Dead series and then The Warriors would probably be listed next. This film has maintained a strong cult following since its release 35 years ago. When I was in high school/middle school (junior high) this film had a resurgence of popularity because it had two popular video game adaptations made of it one in 2005 just called The Warriors, and one in 2009 called The Warriors:Street Brawl, and there have also been comic book adaptations of the film. The film gathered $3.5 million on its opening weekend, but was linked to acts of vandalism and violence the following weekend including 3 killings, two in southern California and one in Boston, involving movie goers heading to or from the theater. Almost all the film's advertising was severely cut to show only the title the rating of the film and theater locations, and at least 200 theaters upped security during showings of the film. Most people nowadays are not aware that the film was actually relatively successful on it's initial release ($16.4 million in its 6th week when the film was made for between $6-7 million) because of its status as a "cult" film. 

The film is about a meeting between all the gangs of New York in the late 70s coming together to hear the leader of the most feared gang in the city propose a citywide truce among all the gangs so that they can work together to better control the city, but one of the people in the crowd didn't like that idea and didn't follow the rules because he came armed, you know this because he shoots and kills the leader Cyrus during his speech. The killer then blames a rival gang called the warriors and everybody is now convinced the warriors are responsible for the killing. The rest of the film is about the warriors trying to get back across the city to their home turf of Coney Island without getting killed by every other gang in the city. This film is definitely partially about youthful angst, but it is also somewhat of an urban retelling of Homer's The Odyssey. The warriors encounter no end of trials on their way back home, from rival gangs to siren like temptations,

  the police, to being separated from each other. Now I thought I'd never be interested in this film because I've never been the type of person to like the ideas of gangs or gang related violence, but this film is a lot more than that as I just previously mentioned. In addition to the deeper side of the film it is very well done visually and is very visually appealing. Critic Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it "visual rock". It also has somewhat of a cartoony feel to it because every gang has a different theme, there's a gang of mimes, a gang of ninjas, and a gang of face painted Jersey wearing baseball bat wielding psychopathic ballplayers no less. The director wanted to divide the film into chapters and start each section with a comic book stylized splash panel, but the studio was on a fixed schedule and limited budget so the film never fully achieved its comic book look (though you can still kind of feel it in the opening titles). The most famous scene from the movie of course is the real murderer taunting the warriors with the now famous,then improvised, cry of:  "Warriorrrrrrrrrrs, come out to plaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" 

Though visually top notch this film does seem a bit empty (like more could have been happening at times) in certain scenes, and the acting is pretty good all around but you don't really get to see too much character development throughout, and some of the acting is just plain cheesy, but in the best possible way (in the last ten minutes especially). This movie is also noted as an early appearance of future Oscar winning actress Mercedes Ruehl, and this movie features the 70s hit single "In the City" by Joe Walsh (the song was from this movie). I give this a 4.25/5 overall, a 4 for how well made it is, and a 4.5 for how much I enjoyed it, so that averages to about 4.25/5. You can view the trailer below: