Originally posted on the now-defunct Birth.Movies.Death.

Walter Hill’s The Warriors is a beloved cult film not just for its simple, propulsive story and hard-hitting action, but for its wide variety of totally strange New York gangs. The iconic Baseball Furies, the all-girl Lizzies, the rollerskating Punks, the miming High Hats – they’re a significant reason why the film has such a passionate fandom.

The original script actually features many more gangs, either involved in the story or listed at the film’s inciting meeting. These gangs either got cut before the shoot or were never intended to actually be seen, but their names invoke strange imagery in much the same way that the film’s colourful characters do. To imagine the kind of all-out Anchorman-esque brawl that could have taken place with these gangs is to court madness.

Some of the cut gangs actually appear in the action to one extent or another:

• The Alley Cats: A gang patch for the Alley Cats was supposedly designed for the movie, depicting a black cat with evil eyes, a dead rat in its mouth, and a number “13” on the end of its tail. Clearly, superstition and bad luck factor into the Alley Cats’ M.O.
• The Dingos: An all-gay gang, the Dingos played a significant role in the original script. They’re described as “bodybuilder types,” with greased-up arms, tight T-shirts, and Doberman Pinschers. In the script, the Dingos ambush and abduct the Warriors’ leader Swan. They remove his pants, put him in a straightjacket, lock him in a dog kennel cell, and threaten to hand him over to the Gramercy Riffs. Swan gets an extended MacGyver- esque escape sequence, before rejoining the Warriors more or less unscathed. It’s probably for the best that the Dingos were cut; they’re a cringey, predatory cartoon of homosexuality, calling each other “dear” and “honey,” referring to the “cute” Swan as “she,” and using their sexuality for intimidation. The sequence also takes Swan out of the main action for quite a few pages, but it’s the depiction of homosexuality that would’ve ultimately worked against the film’s lasting cult status.
• The Gerrards: An Irish gang that appears in the opening montage.
• The Howitzers: A gang from Bedford-Stuyvesant.
• The Knockdowns: An Italian gang that appears in the opening montage.
• The Mongols: A stoopball-playing gang occupying a tenement complex that has a standoff with the Warriors early on as they make their way to the gang conference.
• The Sports: A two hundred-strong gang, based in the Bronx, with a member called Goliath who “busts heads every night.”
• The Wizards: Another gang for which a patch was designed. It sports shiny lightning bolts and a star-and-moon arrangement, but I suspect that rather than suggesting any Islamic alignment, it’s a more generic magic symbol. I’m imagining something along the lines of the band Sorcery.

The rest of the list comes from the gang conclave scene that kicks off the movie’s plot. The script introduces all the gangs by name, but most of them never appear elsewhere in the screenplay, let alone on screen. I’ve taken the liberty of extrapolating their approaches to fashion and violence, based on their names and the wild stylings of the film’s existing gangs. Any resemblance to real gangs is both unintentional and improbable.

• The Amsterdam All-Stars: Dutch immigrants who came to America for the basketball culture, they wear exclusively Converse-branded clothing and settle rivalries with one-on-one basketball duels.
• The Black Hands: Descendants of the various organisations that conspired in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary. They’re still angry that the United States took so long to join the First World War, and take out their frustrations upon New York’s residents.
• The Blackjacks: Wielding heavy koshes and wearing outdated law enforcement uniforms, the Blackjacks are former cops who have taken the problem of gang violence into their own hands, becoming a gang themselves in the process.
• The Big Trains: Made up primarily of wedding planners and dressmakers, the Big Trains wear extravagant wedding gowns with lengthy cathedral trains, stained with the blood and muck of hundreds of street fights.
• The Charlemagnes: The most ambitious gang in New York, the Charlemagnes seek to reform the Holy Roman Empire, starting with the streets of the Big Apple.
• The Colt 45s: Not only do the 45s wield the classic Colt six-shooters, they also maintain a herd of young horses that they sell to racing titans once they come of age, keeping their number of owned horses at 45 at all times.
• The Dealers: Known for their razor-lined visors and almost religious devotion to fairness, the Dealers are frequently engaged as arbiters of disputes between other gangs.
• The Delaney Rovers: An Irish gang so inspired by the United States’ moon landing that they built their own replica space suits and drive around in golf carts modded to look like the Lunar Rover.
• The E Street Shufflers: A group of Bruce Springsteen impersonators who use weaponised guitars in gang brawls.
• The Easy Aces: Drawing their fashion cues from the speakeasies of the 1920s, the Easy Aces always keep playing cards up their sleeves, which they throw with deadly aim and cutthroat speed.
• The Eighth Avenue Apaches: Identifiable by their clumsy cultural appropriation, the Apaches wear elaborate feather headdresses and fight with homemade tomahawks. They are all white.
• The Fastballs: Rivals to the Baseball Furies, the Fastballs use pitching skills, rather than baseball bats, to fight their opponents. Known for their deadly accuracy and pitching speed, and predilection for embedding broken glass into their baseballs.
• The Fifth Street Bombers: Fans of bomber jackets but not of actual bombs, the Bombers spend most of their time correcting press and other gangs who blame them for gang-related bombings around New York.
• The Filmores: Cosplayers of 13th President of the United States Millard Fillmore. Honouring the Whig politician’s tenure as New York State Comptroller, the Filmores take their victories through clever accounting practices.
• The Firetasters: Shirtless and fearless, the Firetasters originated in the same circus as the High-Hat mimes, but spun off into their own gang. They employ their fire-eating skills for intimidation but also in combat, breathing plumes of flame to ignite their enemies.
• The Five Points: Possibly the most old-school gang of all, the Five Points wish to see a return to the “old days” of New York gangdom, waiting in stovepipe hats in Columbus Park for a multi-way showdown that will never come.
• The Go Hards: Predating dudebro culture by decades, the Go Hards nonetheless combined hypermasculinity, cargo shorts, bad music and beer into one of the most-hated gangs in New York.
• The Gun Hill Dancers: This gang rides buses up and down the Bronx’s Gun Hill Road day in and day out, intimidating fellow passengers with highly sexualised dancing.
• The High Rollers: With turf centred around Wall Street, the High Rollers’ gang members are actually investment bankers by day, before blowing off steam after hours in coke-fuelled rampages of violence upon the poor.
• The Homeboys: Difficult to identify, the Homeboys often just seem like that dude you know from your neighbourhood, allowing them to slip behind enemy lines undetected.
• The Hoplites: Armed with spears and shields, this Greek gang spends an inordinate amount of time building sculpted abs and defined iliac crests, before emerging in what is essentially just underwear to do battle against other, much larger gangs.
• The Huks: A Filipino gang, the Huks are one of the rare gangs to have a political agenda (the promotion of communism and the dismantling of American colonialism). Despite their best efforts to involve other gangs in their mission, they remain a minor force in the city.
• The Imps: A cackling gang of diminutive children, dressed in rags, too mischievous for their parents and too violent for any orphanage.
• The Jesters: You never know where you are with the Jesters, who are just as likely to entertain with their jangly jester hats as they are to slit your throat. But that’s just how they roll.
• The Judas Bunch: Known for dousing money with the blood of their enemies, the Judas Bunch became subject to a series of betrayals that ultimately split the gang up.
• The Jupiters: An inbred extended family that consumes hot dogs in enormous quantities in order to become the biggest gang members in town. If you receive a piece of paper bearing only a great red spot, beware the Jupiters.
• The Knuckles: A belligerent, pugilistic clan of Irish Travelers who emigrated to the United States, the Knuckles are also one of the few gangs that completely eschew the use of weaponry other than bare fists.
• The Locos: A Mexican gang that take on the appearance of lucha libre wrestlers and fight only with their own bodies as weapons, breaking their enemies theatrically to ward off any further challengers.
• The Magicians: Cloaked in darkness, mystery, and actual cloaks, the Magicians frequently stage raids on other gangs, appearing and disappearing (with their rivals’ property) in theatrical puffs of smoke.
• The Meatpackers: Based out of the Meatpacking District, the Meatpackers are a violently territorial trade union of abattoir workers that never changes out of their bloody aprons – even when engaging in bizarre BDSM fetish play.
• The Napoleons: Speaking in comical French accents and dressing in 18th-century military garb, the Napoleons’ crippling inferiority complexes both drive their desire to conquer other gangs and prevent them from ever doing so.
• The Nickel Steaks: Known for their toughness and gristle, the Nickel Steaks have worked manual labour, rubbed alcohol on their skin, and engaged in other strategies to toughen up their exteriors, going into battle naked with only their calloused epidermises for protection.
• The Nightriders: Early Lord of the Rings fans who dress as Nazgul on horseback and terrorise the citizenry of New York under cover of darkness.
• The Ninth Avenue Razors: With freshly-shaven faces and bodies, this gang of American Museum of Natural History staff is fastidious about preserving the scenes of their crimes.
• The Phillies: Geographically confused but no less dangerous for it, the Phillies will do anything to get back to Philadelphia – even kill – but they never will.
• The Plainsmen: Cowboys. It’s a gang of cowboys.
• The Queen’s Bridge Mutilators: Though they hail from the Queensbridge public housing project, the Mutilators’ name stems from their origins as a secret society, commissioned by Queen Victoria, to destroy cross-river infrastructure developments. Their current, less-intimidating incarnation is merely a group of graffiti artists.
• The Real Boys: Armoured in wood, the Real Boys use masks with long nose spikes to gain a combat advantage. The least trustworthy gang in New York.
• The Red Hook Shooters: A gang of sniper-rifle-toting muscles for hire, swathed in black, most commonly found working with drug dealers.
• The Roadmasters: Clad in trucker caps and sleeveless tees, the Roadmasters’ turf is wherever they park their 18-wheelers.
• The Romans: Making their way around New York with shields in testudo formation, this gang takes after Roman Centurions, and are known to pit opposing gangs against each other for their own entertainment.
• The Runaways: On the lam from their parents, this gang of tiny but vicious children are most commonly found wearing the pyjamas in which they escaped their homes, lulling their enemies into a false sense of security with their plaintive cries before striking with explosive-laden teddy bears.
• The Saratogas: Revolutionary War re-enactors hellbent on the destruction of any gang with links to the former British Empire. Their single-shot flintlock weapons do not serve them well.
• The Shanghai Sultans: A gang of Chinese-American Muslim converts with a taste for fine silks and jewelry.

• The Southern Cross: A gang made up of expatriates from Australia and New Zealand in an uneasy truce. They wear clothing fashioned out of flags from their respective countries, mashed up into one because nobody other than them can tell the difference anyway.
• The Speedwagons: Actually the popular rock band REO Speedwagon.
• The Stevedores: Based around New York’s ports and loading docks, the Stevedores wear high-visibility overalls and are known for their ability to lift great weights.
• The Stilettos: Donning the highest and bladed-est of heels, the Stilettos combine fetish costumes with martial arts prowess to become a terror of the streets.
• The Stonebreakers: Made up of bitter people denied entry into the Freemasons, the Stonebreakers coat themselves in grey paint and wield sledgehammers in battle.
• The Terriers: Gang from rural England that keeps immaculately-groomed Yorkshire Terriers and terrorises dog show officials around the greater New York area.
• The Turks: Not a gang of Turkish expats as their name would suggest, the Turks are a gang of double amputees with mechanically operated arms that can not only hold up in a fight, but win a game of chess as well.
• The Whispers: A gang of Broadway wash-outs, still in the costumes they wore when they lost their roles, who sang too hard and ruined their voices. They can now speak only in hushed tones, but their body language is so magnetic you can’t help but pay attention.
• The Xenophones: Representing the diversity of America, the only requirement for entry into the Xenophones is the ability to speak at least five foreign languages. Rarely getting into conflicts with other gangs, the Xenophones maintain neutrality by acting as interpreters between gangs of different cultural or ethnic backgrounds.
• The Xylophones: A twelve-member gang, wearing black and white, that wields tiny but deadly mallets that each produce one the twelve chromatic tones in an octave when smashed against a skull.
• The Yo-Yos: Busking on the streets by day with impressive feats of yo-yo acrobatics, the Yo-Yos turn violent at night, using razor wire to transform their toys of choice into deadly weapons of strangulation and decapitation.
• The Youngbloods: Believing themselves to be vampires, the Youngbloods are a gang of cloak-wearing teenagers who live hedonistic lifestyles and drink the blood of their enemies.
• The Zodiacs: Another twelve-member gang, this one with members whose personal styles are based on the twelve astrological star signs. The Zodiacs fought with throwing stars and philosophy, and though they failed to conquer New York, one of them later became a Presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
• The Zulus: An all-black gang whose members honour their specific African ancestry in their combat gear and language. They also only use UTC time, confusing the hell out of other gangs. Start your fanfics now.