Oh, sweet Jesus am I excited to share the news that Walter Hill’s strange, gritty, just-shy-of-alternate-reality classic The Warriors is going to be the Late Night feature at the Art Theater Co-op this weekend.
Featuring performances by currently recognizable actors like James Remar (Dexter‘s dad) and Mercedes Ruehl, and starring Michael Beck, who is one of the world’s best “Oh-THAT-guy” actors, this is a cult classic owing as much to its source novel (by Sol Yurick) as it does to Homer’s The Odyssey.
In a New York besieged by odd, garishly costumed street gangs, a scrappy group known as The Warriors attend a city-wide meeting of gangs intended to bring about a truce. Instead, a murder is pinned on them, and they must fight their way back to their home turf.
It’s almost impossible to adequately explain how cool this movie is. Like a comic book come to life, the film drops you into a world and demands that you suspend your disbelief. And you will. You will believe that The Furies are around the corner, their clown-paint emerging from the shadows. You will believe that there are hillbilly gangs on roller skates. Not that I’ve seen it fourteen times or anything….
Can you dig it?