User Reviews

Kevin Carrigan (Van Patten) is a recent graduate of Malibu High and now is studying animation at Pacific Coast College. All he really wants to do is party down, drink beer, invite babes over to his Phi Delta Tai frat house, engage in quasi-homosexual frat initiations, and did we mention he also just wants to party down? His buddies Fred (Norris), Scott (Tom Reilly), and Jorge (John Alden) are all in on the carefree fun. But when a mysterious gang of bikers rapes and kills Kevin's sister Tiffany (April Dawn), Kevin changes. He realizes there's more to life than keggers and pranks, and he becomes sullen, distant and just plain weird.

Tired of what he sees as too much police incompetence, signified by his own cop father, Lt. Bob Carrigan (Borgnine) and his partner Sgt. John Austin (Roundtree), these former frat-house knuckleheads go out on their own in a jeep with their beloved dog Butch (Casper the Wonder Dog) and try to solve the mystery of his sister's assault. But Kevin and his cronies get deeper and deeper into the seedy underbelly of the city - and its culture of extreme violence - and people like Kevin's mother Beverly (Day George), his girlfriend Lucy (Anne Lockhart) and his professor Hoover (Shawn) - worry Kevin has lost the plot, as well as his mind. Will Kevin's newfound obsession with violence consume him and everything he loves?

In this pickup from Cannon, which infamously combines the 80's teen sex romp and violent revenge genres, we see a major flaw: the movie, despite all the action and shooting and such that we see, actually has an unpleasant, anti-revenge motif. Obviously director/co-writer Foldes didn't realize what audience he was making this film for. You can't make a relatively entertaining, if misguided and overlong, exploitation film catering to drive-ins and hounds of that genre, and then turn around and say "violence and revenge is wrong; don't do it". That's really lame and hypocritical. Just blow up the bad guys with a missile launcher and save your whiny treatises for your shrink (i.e., make a different, less confused, movie).

Another flaw is that our "heroes" are unlikable and you don't care about their plight. The whole first half of the movie is carefully setting up our protagonists as frat-boy jerks. Would it have been so very hard to NOT have done that? So when Kevin flips out and becomes addicted to going out and "fighting crime", the transition isn't as dramatic as it could have been. You know he's really out of it when he wears his bandanna around in daily life. Also we don't know anything about the bad guys or even who they are. They are not established at all. So we don't really even know who Kevin and his buddies are fighting, which detracts from the conflict.

So we have a rockin' title song by Lennie Gale, and the film is dedicated to legendary director King Vidor. I'm sure he's thrilled about that. For some reason, Kevin's father is elderly, and Dick Shawn plays the college professor Kevin talks to, where we get the annoying comment on violence the film puts out there. The theme "violence destroys us all" is just irritating for this type of film. But in the plus column we have Casper the Wonder Dog as Butch. He wears sunglasses and a hat, and, like we've seen so many times before (Killpoint, 1984, and Fist Fighter, 1989) come immediately to mind), he steals the movie.

Here's what Young Warriors SHOULD have been: 1. Kevin and his friends are set up as nice, normal kids 2. The bad guys are established 3. They rape/kill Kevin's sister 4. Kevin and his friends become vigilantes 5. The bad guys kill/injure Kevin and his friends 5. Borgnine and Roundtree go rogue and get revenge for the deaths/injuries to their friends and family, and (OPTIONAL) 6. Ernest Borgnine shoots a missile launcher. THAT'S IT! If that was the movie, Young Warriors would be a classic for the ages. As it stands, we have a deeply flawed, but still worthwhile watch.

Released in a big-box VHS in the U.S., for all its foibles, there's still some meat on the bone for 80's obsessives to enjoy with Young Warriors.

For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com.

So I give it one star for true quality, but I'd give it an eight and a half for sheer enjoyability. An incredibly strange hybrid of sex comedy and vigilante thriller, "Young Warriors" is just the sort of bad movie you usually hope to find when poking around the video fringe, yet so rarely do. It starts off with about half an hour of wacky hi-jinx, sex jokes, and juvenile shenanigans (including an olive in the martini joke that has to be seen not to be believed). Then the main character's younger sister gets gang raped by a bunch of swarthy bikers (an objectionable scene that keeps me from giving this a 10 for entertainment value - rape is not entertainment!), and the main character gets the rest of his sex crazed frat brothers to help him in a quest to clean up the city, find the responsible bikers, and kill anybody slightly criminal they run into along the way.

It's hilarious, non-stop fun, apart from the very unpleasant rape scene, and is essential viewing to any serious bad movie fan. Trust me - I've put my time in on these things, and this is one of the best. Highlights include a wonderful visit to the library, a great flickering slo-mo shootout in a sleazy bar (with a shot of a guy blowing his own foot off that's pretty impressive), a couple of decent slumming actors (Richard Roundtree, Ernest Borgnine), a couple of semi-famous recognizable faces (Lynda Day George, scream queen Linnea Quigley), and a couple of relatives of famous people (Chuck Norris' brother Mike, Van Patten clan member James). It even has one of those great "What have we become?" type morality lesson endings, although the turning point comes when the vigilante fratboys gun down a couple of kids robbing a store with a toy gun. I've always wondered why that was the catalyst that got the hero thinking; after all, whether they were kids and not hardened criminals, and whether they had a real gun or not, they were in fact still robbing a store, so as far as I can tell, it was just another job well done for our vigilante frat boys, right? Wonderful stuff. Highly recommended, just don't blame me when you enjoy it despite yourself.

We need to talk about Kevin. Young Warriors is not your everyday rape revenge movie. Underneath the surface, this is a story about a young man dealing with his masculinity while dealing with his homosexual desires. Yes, boys will be boys, as this movie has a hidden message on the role of the American Hero. Kevin, is that said hero as he struggles with the murder / rape of his sister while having both Mommy and Daddy issues and at the same time searches for his place as an Artist and a fellow Bro. He chooses his Bros time and time again over his girlfriend, parents, his classes and most importantly the law. As a born again Vigilante, Kevin shoots up most of downtown before he bumps into his sister's attackers by chance. Kevin gets his revenge but first loses his dog, his Bros, his somewhat girlfriend Lucy (who kinda sucks), his family and most importantly his sanity. An attempt to bring psychology and sociology into the question on why people murder falls short while most of the male characters treat the female characters as objects and things that just get in the way. As for Kevin being Gay, the audience must ask themselves how Kevin perceives women throughout this movie. Most of the time, he does not even look at them, if not downright ignores them. His mind is always on something else. Even while in the bedroom, Kevin appears to be not there and not totally engaged. What else is Kevin trying to convince himself outside his loyalty to his sister Tiffany. Blink, and you'll miss Ernest Borgnine who bailey shows up to be in this movie. His character adds nothing to the mix and ends up not mattering.

Young Warriors (1983)

While this is a deeply flawed (and in some ways idiotic) movie, the way it continually defies expectations makes it decent viewing for the adventurous sleaze fan.

Meet yuppie college student Kevin and his gang of lovable frat boy buddies. In what starts out as a particularly egregious teen sex comedy, we follow this bunch of jerk-offs and their antics, which involve, among other things, making pledges tie bricks to their genitals. The movie abruptly shifts gears when Kevin's high school freshman sister is brutally raped and beaten into a coma by a gang of bikers who apparently have nothing better to do. When she dies in the hospital, Kevin vows revenge, much to the chagrin of his detective father.

So far, we've gone from Porky's-lite, through Last House On The Left territory, into what is apparently shaping up to be your typical urban vigilante revenge flick. However, Kevin and his gang's portrayal goes from vaguely sympathetic until they become kill-crazed lunatics. It's to the film's credit that it doesn't glamorize the fascist anti-crime rhetoric that Kevin continually spouts, while still making it understandable that he would feel the way he does.

The mood goes from lighthearted to grimy and downbeat very quickly, and by the end it's so over the top and exploitative that it'll leave you incredulous. And that's the strength of this film. You never know what to expect next.

At over 100 minutes, it's a little lengthy for this kind of fare, but you won't get bored. Poorly acted for the most part, with cardboard cutouts for characters and some particularly ludicrous situations and rather stupid dialogue, this won't be topping anyone's list of forgotten classics anytime soon. I got a kick out of it though, and I'm sure anyone reading this knows if they're up for it.

Intended as a sequel to Malibu High, which is itself an absolutely berserk film that has a poster that promises summer love and delivers a nihilistic blast of hatred, Young Warriors is possibly directed* by Lawrence David Foldes, the one-time teen wunderkind - or publicity machine, the jury is out - who made Don't Go Near the Park before he turned twenty and produced the aforementioned Malibu High at the same time.

Produced by Victoria Paige Meyerink, who was once Danny Kaye's TV daughter and at the time of this movie's creation, the wife of Foldes and another twenty-something mover and shaker, the resulting film is like nothing before or since. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

The first part of this movie seems like a teen comedy, with Kevin Carrigan (James Van Patten) and his frat buddies Fred (Mike Norris, brother of Chuck) and Stan (Ed De Stefane), chase Linnea Quigley nude from their bed and pull off pranks like tying pledge's cocks to bricks and then tossing said masonry, appendages be damned. You may think that this entire movie is going to be a wacky story about their hijinks, but Young Warriors decides to rug pull you throughout the film.

So when another frat guy named Roger (Nels Van Patten) is getting a copy of Dr. Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex and re-enacting it with a librarian in the stacks, as well as the rest of the guys shaving a pledge's ass and making him pick up a cocktail olive with his butt, drop it in some vodka and drink deep, that's when we discover Kevin's sister Tiffany coming home from the prom. As if the future ghost of Michael Winner is directing this with his ethereal perverted old man hand, she and her date are chased home from the prom and assaulted. This scene is intercut with the frat guys riding a horse through a party and then you remember, oh, this is a Cannon movie.

That's when you may be led to believe that Kevin's dad Lt. Bob Carrigan (Ernest Borgnine) and his partner Sergeant John Austin (Richard Roundtree) are about to become the leads of the movie, hunting down those who hurt Tiffany. But nope, not even these two movie tough guys can get through all it takes to get over police procedure - maybe Bob is too busy with his wife, played by my favorite tennis-playing undercover cop Lynda Day George - so Kevin and the frat guys go commando and grab guns, grenades and shades and become Bluto Blutarsky cosplaying as Frank Castle.

Somehow, this goes from being an Animal House film with cute dog named Butch wearing sunglasses reaction shots to a Death Wish film with cute dog named Butch wearing sunglasses reaction shots. I'm obsessed by sequels that change the narrative or genre of the original movie, so just imagine how wild I am about a movie that does it within the very same movie. It's jarring and it's also astounding that the movie becomes a sensitive indictment - well, sometimes - of the downward spiral of being a vigilante after so many dick jokes.

Also: Kevin's path of revenge takes a break for some sweet lovemaking surrounded by an infinite number of candles, joined by his woman Lucy (Anne Lockhart from the original Battlestar Galactica and the first Troll).

Also also: major points for having Dick Shawn as a professor that debates the entire plot of the film with its protagonist. Shawn would follow this with his turn as Mae in Angel. Always great in everything, I always look for him to make movies better.

Also also also: this movie is dedicator to King Vidor. Yes, really.

Without taking too much away from this lunkheaded 80s vigilante movie's action, I must say the atrocities pale in comparison to the remarkable fluffy mullets and athletic shorts sported by the gang of twenty-something avengers,(led by a whiny James Van Patten, who looks here like a genetic cross between Jay Leno and David Patrick Kelly). Not even the wall-to-wall synth stingers and thumping drum machine can compete with wardrobe and hair. The gang even has a sports mascot, a poodle named Butch. Van Patten is so traumatized by the rape and murder of his sister, there's no safe retreat into his art (some form of lame graphic animation he screens to his friends; these "space-y" visuals looking like the rejected material of the video game companies who brought us Detroyer, Battle Zone, and Asteroids). He, instead, embraces spontaneous violence against street crime. Most of the atrocities avenged in the movie are so well-lit and conveniently found as to make the work of Dirty Harry, Charles Bronson and Robocop seem positively procedural. Yet the merciless violence can't sustain the awful characterizations and Van Patten's adolescent outbursts. Ernest Borgnine is in full Comm. Peterson mode here, playing Lt. Carrigan. Aside from sporting a snazzy red leather jacket that barely conceals his bulbosity, he's partnered up with Richard Roundtree, and both men's "hands are tied" by the system. Cannon Films produced this mess, but it's easier to measure the movie by its flaws than its assets. Not even Linnea Quigley can improve things any. Memorable scene highlights the disturbed Van Patten's degenerate art reaching a new low, as his professor shouts in front of the class, "This goes beyond the boundaries of art!" and "It's abnormal!". Who would have thought a vigilante's neon, flashing renderings of "Tron"-like haunted-house werewolves and toothy snakes and skulls could disguise the reason behind all this vengeance? Decent exploding miniature at the end.