Deadly Friend
Tags: comedy, gothic, murder, violence, cult, revenge

Plot synopsis:
In a parking lot, a thief tries to steal from a Volkswagen van but a robot named BB (voiced by Charles Fleischer) stops him. BB lets go of the thief, who is dazed. Paul Conway (Matthew Laborteaux) and his mother Jeannie (Anne Twomey) return from shopping and drive away in the van. Paul is the owner of BB, which he built. They arrive at their new house in the town of Welling Proper the next day.Paul soon become friends with newspaper delivery boy Tom Toomey (Michael Sharrett). Paul has a university scholarship due to his vast intelligence and interests in neurology and artificial intelligence. As they move in, BB's batteries run low. The robot, which occasionally shows signs of autonomy, plugs himself into an electrical socket to charge up. At the university, Paul, Jeannie, and BB meet Paul's professor, Dr. Johanson, who gives them a tour of Paul's new laboratory.A few days later, Paul and BB are cleaning the yard. Paul meets his next-door neighbor, Samantha Pringle (Kristy Swanson). Paul notices some bruises on her arm but Samantha tries to hide them. Sam's abusive, alcoholic father, Harry (Richard Marcus), soon comes outside and stares at her menacingly. Samantha is frightened and returns to her father. That night, Samantha visits Paul and Jeannie. Her father soon drags Samantha home and beats her.
Tom helps Paul teach BB to deliver newspapers. They stop at the house of reclusive harridan Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey), who threatens the boys with a loaded shotgun and expresses dislike for BB. The three walk away. Tom reveals that his father is a security guard at the university hospital. Walking further, they encounter a motorcycle gang. The gang insults Tom and they push Paul into a garbage bin. BB grabs the gang leader's crotch. The gang rides away, with the leader vowing revenge.Paul, Samantha, Tom, and BB develop a close friendship. One day, they play basketball in the neighborhood. BB accidentally tosses the ball onto Elvira's porch. She stomps out of her house and takes the ball, refusing to give it back. BB's eyes freeze on Elvira as if he will never forget the insult.On Halloween night, Samantha comes over with a bloody nose and asks for ice. Paul and Jeannie believe that her father is abusing her. Samantha goes out with Paul, Tom, and BB. Tom decides to pull a prank on Elvira. BB unlocks her gate and Samantha rings her doorbell. Alarms go off and they hide in the shrubbery. Elvira finds BB standing near her porch and shoots the robot. Paul is devastated by the loss of his friend, while Tom blames himself for suggesting the stunt.On Thanksgiving Day, Paul and Jeannie eat dinner with Samantha. Afterwards, Paul and Samantha share their first kiss. Samantha returns home late at night, outraging her father, who punches her in the face and pushes her down the stairs, causing her to be rushed to the hospital. Samantha is left brain-dead. Dr. Johanson tells Paul that she will be put on life support for 24 hours and then the plug will be pulled. Paul remembers how BB's microchip links artificial intelligence with the human brain, and runs to Tom's house. With an idea in mind, he asks him for his father's keys to the hospital to sneak into Samantha's room and bring her back to life when the plug is pulled. They get the keys, and enter the hospital as Tom deactivates hospital power from the basement, Dr. Johanson pulls the plug on Samantha. When the hospital goes dark, Paul enters Samantha's room and drags her to his lab. Paul's inserts the microchip into Samantha's brain and brandishes his remote control, attempting to activate Samantha. Samantha's foot moves, causing Tom to faint. Paul takes Samantha to the shed at his house and activates Samantha. She opens her eyes mechanically and starts to breathe, with her hands in the position of BB's pincers as Paul teaches her to sit up.The police arrive at Samantha's home and inform Harry that her body has disappeared. In the middle of the night, Paul finds Samantha staring at the window, looking at her father. Paul deactivates her. The next morning, Paul awakens and sees that Samantha is gone. He searches for her in the street, but there is no sign of her. Samantha is at her house, avenging herself on her father. Harry finds the cellar door open and goes downstairs. Samantha yanks her father off his feet and drags him to the furnace. She kills him by snapping his neck. Paul finds her in the cellar and sees her father's head burning. Horrified, he hides the corpse in a pile of coal. He goes home with Samantha and locks her in his bedroom.That night, Samantha breaks free again. This time, she avenges herself upon Elvira for shooting BB. Elvira calls the police, but they hang up on her. A basketball bounces ominously in her living room indicating that Samantha has broken in. Samantha, now developing super-strength, grabs the basketball and throws it at Elvira, causing her head to explode. Elvira's decapitated body rolls on the floor and runs in circles, spurting blood and gore until it bounces off the door and lays dead on the porch.At Elvira's house, police discover Elvira's corpse and Harry's body. When Tom learns that Samantha is killing people, Paul promises things will change. Tom refuses to budge, and the two fight. Samantha jumps out a window and attacks Tom, believing that he has injured Paul. Paul and Jeannie save Tom, but Samantha runs away. As Paul runs after her, the leader of the biker gang confronts him. As a police car arrives, Samantha throws the biker into the car's windshield. As she runs off, she is confronted by police. She makes her way back to Paul's shed. Paul meets her there and tries to comfort her. He is amazed as he realizes that Samantha is becoming more human, even saying his name tenderly. The police arrive and point at Paul. Samantha yells Paul's name and the police shoot. The bullet hits Samantha, who was defending Paul. She dies in his arms.Later, Paul visits Samantha in the morgue. A malevolent version of BB emerges from Samantha's head, grabbing Paul's neck. Samantha/BB says, "Paul. Come with me, Paul". Off-screen, Paul screams as Samantha/BB crushes his neck.The credits end with BB's name being said over and over again.

Review: Like in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven is able to create characters who you actually give a damn about and that's what makes this silly premise actually work.The film is pretty funny at times and the graphic horror is sure to delight gore hounds.
"Deadly Friend" is one of those horror films that came and went without a trace; but for a die hard horror fanatic like myself, it certainly had it's share of scares, humor, and yes, a surprising human touch.Matthew Laborteaux (a "Little House on the Prairie" alum) plays Paul; an egghead teen with a robot pal named BB.
In the course of the plot, he meets Samantha or "Sam" (Kristy Swanson), an abused, lonely girl who catches the eye of young Paul.
Needlessly killed, by her drunk father, Paul vows to make wrongs right, by implanting BB's superchip into Sam's brain....and that my friends, is where the fun (or nightmares) begin.Sam is confused about her new identity, and is naturally seen as a freak.
DEADLY FRIENDThis 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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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 result which comes after Paul's operation on BB and Samantha is very close to that of Henenlotter's Frankenhooker and they both are equally demented!DEADLY FRIEND isn't as great and noteworthy horror comedy as it very well could have been in the hands of this director, but still I prefer this over Shocker, for instance, but this is far away from the masterpieces (Elm Street, Serpent etc.) of the director.
i really liked this movie.i though it was very creepy.it isn't original,borrowing from other movies,some quite heavily.more than anything,this is an 80 take on the Frankenstein tale.and like Frankenstein,this movie is filled with sorrow and tragedy,in the deepest sense.most horror movies are not deep at all,but this one has more depth than most.Wes craven also borrows liberally from his own Nightmare on Elm Street.the acting is pretty good,but Kristy Swanson is brilliant,in my opinion.she steals the show,in all her scenes.even though this movie is not original,i do like the direction they took with it.i think it's well made and compelling,with a main character you really care about and feel great sadness for.this movie is part of the Twisted Terror Collection,and is also contained in the box set of the same name,with five other suspense/horror movies.for me,Deadly friend is an 8/10.
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.
Everyone who knows anything about horror movies knows that Wes Craven is a horror legend because of films like The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.
Matthew Laborteaux (who people may know as Albert from The Little House on the Prairie) is perfectly cast as Paul Conway, the main character of the film who is a genius and is even friends with an adorable robot named BB.
Her performance was hilarious because she was so mean and her crotchety attitude made for some great and memorable moments.This film starts out as your typical, cheerful '80s movie about the new kid in town and has a light, comedic atmosphere to begin with.
(shotgun thing), I really liked how the sweet, super tender and sexy Kristy Swanson came on board as the main villain.The movie follows the typical over the top slasher formula that deals with inventive death scenes (much in the likes of "A Nightmare On Elm Street") and a graveyard love story.Still, the movie lacked of a dark tone or any mystery.
But will she come back to life normal?"Deadly Friend" is an underrated cult movie from the 80's directed by Wes Craven in the beginning of his successful career.
See, Paul's so intelligent that he bases the brains of his robots on the human mind, so even though B.B. looks like a clunky, cheap, barely-mobile toy from the deepest, darkest part of the 80s, it's highly intelligent.Anyway, Paul gets picked on at school and is pitied only by a pretty girl named Samantha, who decides to be nice to him, just like in real life.
Paul keeps her in his garage because, you know, Samantha's supposed to be dead and everything, but she starts committing acts of revenge against anyone who mistreated Paul, Sam, or the robot itself.Like the other reviews mention, there are only three good things about this movie:* The scene in which robo-Samantha decapitates a mean old woman with a basketball (I'm not a big horror fan, but that was too cool and odd to ignore)*The fact that the role of the mean old woman is played by that mean old woman from Goonies*Keeping in mind the material she had to work with, Kristy Swanson does a good jobI realize I've summarized most of the plot, but I'm not going to give away the ending...
You just have to see it.So yeah, Deadly Friend is a silly movie from a decade that gave us a lot of silly movies, but it's a decent way to kill some time, if only for a few scenes (and laughs).I said there was something horrifying about Deadly Friend, and I wasn't lying, just saving the best for last: the screenplay was written by the same guy who penned the screenplay to JACOB'S LADDER, one of the finest films I have ever seen!.
Now both minds are going to have their personal revenge.Directed by Wes Craven (Scream Trilogy, Music of the Heart, Red Eye) made an entertaining although very flawed horror film.
Well, I'm guessing that Wes Craven saw Star Wars and Re-Animator and thought he'd better make a movie about robots and bringing the dead back to life.
Deadly Friend feels like a kids' movie for most of the way through, and there isn't much horror at all until the central plot 'twist'.
Not one of my favorites (even though it's directed by Wes Craven, and stars Kristy Swanson), but any movie that manages to incorporate a basketball into a death scene, has to have something going for it..
When I first started watching 'Deadly Friend' I knew it was going to be a great film, it really pulled me into the characters and made me feel for them all in different ways - for example I really identified with Paul's character as at the time I was very much a loner.
Wes Craven directed a lot of films in his storied career, and "Deadly Friend" was definitely one of them.
Conceived as a teen coming-of-age story with a sci-fi twist, the film quickly spun out of control when it was decided by the studio that it needed more scenes of graphic violence and surreal dream sequences in the same vein as "Elm Street," culminating in an ending so stupid, it could only have been dreamed up by a braindead studio exec (spoiler alert: it was).Paul (Matthew Laborteaux), a young genius with a penchant for neural science, is the new kid in town.
Together with his single mother (Anne Twomey) and his robot companion (the scene stealing, anti-R2- D2, BB), he adapts quickly to life in his new town, drawing the ire of some really dull bullies, making friends with a spaz (Michael Sharrett) and sparking up a potential romance with the lovely girl next door, (Kristy Swanson).
When one door closes, another opens, and before long, his young love is resurrected and not quite acting herself, lashing out at her abusive father and playing pickup games of basketball that go a little too far (culminating in the most memorable and laugh-out-loud moment of the entire film).Packed with an oddball sense of humor and some pretty gnarly if not somewhat out of place gore effects, "Deadly Friend" is a film any '80s horror fan should see at least once.
Deadly Friend, a Frankenstein inspired tale in which dead teenager Samantha (Kristy Swanson) is brought back to life by the insertion of an artificial intelligence microchip into her brain, must be one of the dumbest movies in Wes Craven's erratic career, but to be fair, it might not be ALL his fault: studio intervention apparently altered Craven's original vision—a twisted love story between Sam and the genius boy next door—by forcing the director to add in extra scenes of gore and pointless dream sequences.The result is a real howler, a film that features a cute Johnny 5 style robot that makes stupid noises, includes one of the most ridiculous horror movie deaths ever (a super-splattery decapitation by basketball), suffers from a truly awful performance from attractive young star Swanson, and closes with the silliest shock ending sincewell, since Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street, actually.
Nope.After Robot BB's brain was implanted in Samantha, I was interested in seeing where this was going but I started losing interest as well.It just was NOT the same anymore.The Elvira kill scene has to be 1 of the worst kill scenes I've ever seen.It was definitely different but stupid & the final end scene has to be 1 of the worst endings I've ever seen.If Deadly Friend was remade then I hope it's Wes Craven directing again & this time, I hope he'll be able to direct it exactly the way he wants.
In this here sci-fi/horror, you got a young genius name Paul (Matthew Laborteaux, "Little House on the Prairie") who have a robot friend named BB.
Wes Craven should be ashamed of himself,because "Deadly Friend" is one of the worst pieces of crap I have ever seen.Words can't describe how god-awful this piece of garbage is!The plot is obnoxious and extremely stupid,the acting is bad and there's no suspense at all.I can't also notice hardly any gore here!In the whole film there's only one scene worthy any recommendation:the sequence where an old woman gets her head splattered with a basketball.Avoid this junk like the plague!.
DEADLY FRIEND is kind of a goofy ABC-After-School-Special-meets-John-Hughes kind of movie, if you filtered it through SHORT CIRCUIT...by way of WESTWORLD.Brainy geek Paul Conway (Matthew Laborteaux, all grown up from hanging out on the prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder) is the "new kid on the block," with very few friends except for fellow geek Tom Toomey (Michael Sharrett) and the intelligent robot he's built in his spare time, affectionately known as "B.B."That soon changes when he meets the blond beauty next door, Samantha Pringle (Kristy "I was Buffy FIRST!" Swanson), who has eyes for Paul, and bruises from her abusive stepdad.
Perplexing thriller from director Wes Craven begins promisingly--sort of like a '70s Disney movie with an attitude--but the tone of the picture starts to falter right about the time the beaten girl has a nightmare in which she stabs her father and his blood squirts her in the face.
I do respect Craven, but when a teenage boy genius decides to resurrect his neighborhood friend, Kristy Swanson, after she's killed by her abusive father using his knowledge of robotics, the film is amazingly silly.
Deadly Friend should probably be good for fans of cult horror films, and this is nothing like some of Wes Craven's past and present films such as "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Scream", but it does have a good combination of both the horror classics "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein".
Though there are some memorable moments (though the basketball-murder is absolutely ridiculous, I'll probably remember it for the rest of my life) and some good emotional moments (how did I feel for poor Kristy Swanson.) The BB robot is cute and you really feel sorry for Matthew Laborteaux when it gets destroyed, but all this barely saves the movie.
In a sense, this movie is very much like Stephen King's "Pet Sematary" and sometimes dead IS better...While resurrected, Samantha goes on a killing spree; avenging her death, as well as B.B. the robot's, via the "basketball" scene!
For very long time now i am huge fan of it, and i don't care about all the crap i might get, i'm not gonna change my opinion.I know, this movie has lot of problems with mixed direction and forced horror scenes, but i don't think that it's as bad as some of the Craven's other work like Hills Have Eyes 2.
If all gore was taken out, movie would still be solid horror and with, like they originally wanted, interesting and dark love story.You can actually see that there was more to this film with the romance subplot, and few of those scenes between Paul and Sam after she's been brought back to life are very well done both by director and actors.
Dopey variation on the Frankenstein concept with Laborteaux the young science genius who implants his robot's computer chip into the head of his accidentally killed friend Swanson to bring her back to life.
And Laborteaux gives a decent performance as Paul: I wanted things to go well for him, and when he finds out about Sam's death (just as romance was about to blossom between the two), I could understand his feelings of pain and sorrow.When Sam is revived and becomes a killer, "Deadly Friend" turns into a standard low-budget horror film, with all the usual shocks and gore.
However, the scene where Sam decapitates crazy old Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey) with a basketball (!) is worth a look."Deadly Friend" is not the perfect horror movie, but it does contain enough heart and humanity to separate it from the rest of the pack..
The film stars Matthew Laborteaux as a young teen who moves into a new neighborhood with his mom and robot friend and meets the young Kristy Swanson, a pretty girl who lives with her physically abusive father.
Precocious electronics whiz kid Paul Conway (a solid and likable performance by Matthew Laborteaux) brings his sweet girlfriend Samantha Pringle (ably played with bubbly charm by the lovely Kristy Swanson) back to life by placing a robot computer chip in her brain after she's killed by her abusive alcoholic father Harry (an effectively creepy turn by Richard Marcus).
The only good acting is by Swanson (LOVE how she acts like the robot when she comes back to life), Michael Sharrett (very funny playing Tom) and Anne Ramsey having a whale of a time.