Deadly Friend (1986)

A few people have said that it's an undiscovered treasure, more people have stated that it's possibly Wes Craven's worst movie (haven't they seen "Shocker"?); I simply found it to be an OK, average horror offering that merely helps you kill two hours. The first half plays almost like a well-observed drama, but after Swanson has been "resurrected" the film becomes just too silly to work. The "infamous" basketball scene, however, is undeniably great; you'll have to rewind the tape multiple times to get the full effect of it! (**1/2)

Fmovies: Deadly Friend is not a bad movie. Looks like alot of critics did not like this movie. But why like a movie like scream? Those movies did not make any sense. Deadly friend had some great scenes. The best I would say is when Sam jumps out the window to attack Paul's friend. This movie had some scary moments. I feel it was overlooked by alot of people. Wes Craven makes good horror movies. He did a great job with this movie. It's really worth watching.

Okay, one of my fellow reviewers here on this site described this film in one marvelous – rather sarcastic – sentence. In fact, it's so well stated that I'm going to steal it for my own review. The premise of Deadly Friend, ladies and gentlemen: `Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy creates lethal cyber-Barbie...'. Deadly Friend introduces Paul, an ultra-intelligent adolescent who build a robot that thinks and handles completely for itself. The robot – B.B – is the purest, most advanced piece of technology ever yet it talks with a peppy, blurry voice. Along with his mother, Paul moves to a new town where he continues his Pointdexter studies and falls in love with his sweet neighbor girl (the yummy Kristy Swanson). The girl is terrorized and eventually killed by her monstrous father, a crazy old woman blows B.B to pieces and Paul snaps. He steals her corpse from the hospital and implants her with B.B's artificial brain. Right from the start, this goes wrong as Kristy avenges her death (and how!). Although the undertone of Deadly Friend is downright comic, there are quite a lot gruesome moments and bloody sequences. The plot is highly unoriginal (actually, some sort of lame Frankenstein-variant), the characters are far from believable and the entire production is perfect to claim Wes Craven is an overrated director. Below average, silly film but with – it has to be said – one of the coolest killings ever! The basketball-decapitation alone is worth at least one viewing of this film.

Deadly Friend fmovies. DEADLY FRIEND is written by Bruce Joel Rubin who has also written films like Deep Impact (Mimi Leder, 1998) and Ghost (Jerry Zucker, 1990). DEADLY FRIEND is directed by Wes Craven, the horror maestro behind films like A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) and the 90's boxoffice hit Scream (1996). Craven has done many mediocre or even bad films and especially in the 1980's. Fortunately DEADLY FRIEND isn't among the worst ones.

The film stars Matthew Laborteaux as teenager Paul, who moves to a new town with his mother. Paul has a self made artificial intelligence robot called BB and he spends a lot of time with BB and even talks about its structure and other elements in the school for students. Soon he meets the neighbor Samantha played by Kristy Swanson. Samantha is abused by his father and BB is abused by their angry old lady neighbor who indeed looks like a nightmare on your street. Soon something happens to BB and something happens to Samantha and what our teen genius develops is something we've seen at least in Frank Henenlotter's trash classic Frankenhooker (1990) among many other more or less serious "Frankenstein themed" horror films.

DEADLY FRIEND is little like Craven's other late 80's film, Shocker (1989). Both films try to be teen drama, horror and comedy at the same time, and it is of course pretty difficult to achieve a totally satisfying result with so many ingredients. DEADLY FRIEND is surprisingly restrained and drama oriented and Samantha really becomes pretty sympathetic girl and the two central boys as well. They're not over-the-top smiling and beautiful adolescents one can find from any of those disgusting Hollywood produced teen horrors/slashers that spawned after the success of Scream. In DEADLY FRIEND, the teenagers are pretty natural and realistic and so they're easy to feel sympathy for.

Craven has the talent to keep his tongue in cheek while directing these films (just remember the outrageous finale in Shocker!) and that helps a lot. He doesn't take himself too seriously and if he does, it happens very rarely. DEADLY FRIEND makes me smile a lot, but it's all intentional and I don't smile because I feel ashamed or sorry for the makers, which is the case when a film really takes itself too seriously and becomes laughable. The outrageousness in DEADLY FRIEND is taken as far as possible in a Warner production like this when the infamous and often heard among horror fans "basketball murder" comes and I must say it feels quite gruesome in an otherwise "lame" and harmless film like this. The gore in that brief but memorable scene is close to that of Tom Savini's in films like Maniac (William Lustig, 1980) and The Prowler aka Rosemary's Killer (Joseph Zito, 1982). I kind of doubt would this film get an R rating nowadays.

The main problem in DEADLY FRIEND is that it is too straightforward and has huge holes and easy solutions in its plot and screenplay. When writer Rubin decides they're going to do something, it just happens and there are no problems at all, as if they were completely alone in the city, the hospital and so on. Also the Samantha's father is totally unnecessary as a character. He is there completely in vain, and the violence he commits towards his daughter without any motive or explanation feels quite tasteless and unnecessary in a film like this. Samantha's fate could have been arranged without the character of her father and definitely ten

Deadly Friend is a largely unknown film from acclaimed director Wes Craven, who became famous for movies like The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left. But if you give a chance to this thriller you will find something very original and scary...very scary!Deadly Friend is a genuinely frightening experience, it has such a great story that catches you from the beginning to the end. First of all, the plot is original and interesting - Deadly Friend isn't just another horror film, it's in parts a love story and in others it works as an old-fashioned gripping thriller that would make Hitchcock or De Palma proud of. Paul is a new kid in town, and he is a genius in computers and robots. He falls in love with the kind, sweet and vulnerable girl next door, Samantha, but everything ends up bad when Samantha's abusive father kills her. The guy freaks out and steals Samantha's body. He uses all his knowledge in machines and computer chips, and achieves to bring her back...as a killer robot!he takes her to his attic but she soon starts to kill the persons who used to humiliate her.

The Cast: the cast is great, terrific performances are delivered by the main actors. Kirsty Swanson is outstanding as Samantha, in the first hour of the film she is so sweet you may fall in love with her, in the last hour she is scary as hell. She is an excellent young star, and in certain ways, she reminds a lot another great young actress, Reese Witherspoon, she has that quality of delivering true-to-life, real performances, and like Reese she has an innocent beauty.Mathew Laborteaux makes a believable character, Paul is a guy who isn't a bad kid, he just is desperate to help the girl he loves but doesn't know how to deal with the consequences of his acts.

The Director: Wes Craven once again hits big time!this is one of his greatest films, but it will be a surprise for his fans because, instead of what they saw in The Hills Have Eyes and in most of Craven's films, Deadly Friend isn't so violent. Of course, you get some blood and guts here, but the deaths are relative low. If you want to see a body count, go rent Hellbound Hellraiser 2. Craven's goal here is that he sustains some kind of genuine suspense during the whole film with mastery, something that just Alfred Hitchcok used to do well.

The Story: in just one word - OUTSTANDING!this is a different, compelling story, it's a gripping tale that mixes such elements like love and horror, it's an appealing and charming material.

If you want to watch something really good, rent this great movie!here you will find suspense, humor, horror and love. It's a great job from great professionals!

DEADLY FRIEND

This Wes Craven effort may seem a little dated in these post-Scream days, but watching it for the first time in years I realised it may have been an overlooked slice of mid-eighties teen-horror cinema. It's stylistically similar with the lesser cherished of Craven's films, such as Summer of Fear, Deadly Blessing and Chiller, but, like these mentioned titles is worth revisiting.

It has the usual Craven touches – kids in jeopardy, nightmares within-the-film that throw you off balance and dysfunctional relationships, but the film is basically about an intellectual who reanimates his girlfriend by placing the microchip brain of his home made android into her dead body leading murderous results. No one can deny the greatness, if extremely absurd, of that exploding head via basketball scene remains.

Bride of Frankenstein and Short Circuit combined may not suite a lot of pallets, but as Wes Craven films go Deadly Friend is definitely not half as bad as the critics claimed at the time of it's initial release.