Deadly Friend (1986)

After his friend is killed by her abusive father, the new kid in town attempts to save her by implanting robotic microchips into her brain.

Director:

Wes Craven

Writers:

Diana Henstell (novel), Bruce Joel Rubin (screenplay)

Stars:

Matthew Labyorteaux, Kristy Swanson, Michael Sharrett

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Matthew Labyorteaux	...	Paul Conway (as Matthew Laborteaux)
Kristy Swanson	...	Samantha Pringle
Michael Sharrett	...	Tom 'Slime' Toomey
Anne Twomey	...	Jeannie Conway
Anne Ramsey	...	Elvira Parker
Richard Marcus	...	Harry Pringle
Russ Marin	...	Dr. Johanson
Lee Paul	...	Sergeant Volchek
Andrew Roperto	...	Carl
Charles Fleischer	...	BB (voice)
Robin Nuyen	...	Thief
Frank Cavestani	...	Angry Resident
Merritt Olsen	...	CAT Scan Technician
William H. Faeth	...	Doctor in Sam's Room (as William H. Faeth M.D.)
Joel Hile	...	Deputy

Storyline

Paul Conway and his mother Jeannie Conway travel to a new town where Paul will join the local university invited by Dr. Johanson. They bring the robot BB that was developed by Paul, who is a genius in robotic. Paul befriends the paperboy Tom Toomey and has a crush on his next door neighbor Samantha Pringle, whose abusive alcoholic father Harry Pringle frequently hurts her. One day, Paul, Sam, Tom and BB are playing basketball and the ball fall in the field of their paranoid grumpy neighbor Elvira Parker that does not give it back to the teenagers. In Halloween, Tom convinces Paul to let BB open the padlock of the entrance to her house. However, there is an alarm system and Elvira blows up BB with her shotgun. Then Harry pushes her daughter down the stairs and the doctors let her brain-dead connected to the life support. However Paul convinces Tom to go to the hospital to rescue Sam and then he implants BB's chip into her brain resurrecting Samantha. But will she come back to life ...

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Plot Keywords:

robot | basketball | 1980s | abusive father | morgue | 

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Taglines:

There's no one alive who'll play with the girl next door!

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Genres:

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 October 1986 (USA)

Also Known As:

Friend

Filming Locations:

Midwest Street, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$8,988,731

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Pan Arts, Layton

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Wes Craven once said regarding the reasons why re-shoots and adding more graphic death scenes into the film were demanded by the studio: "We started off doing a picture that Warner Bros. indicated they wanted to do, a macabre love story with a twist. About five weeks into the shoot, they realized who I was and told me not to be inhibited by what they had told me in the past... So, in the last weeks of shooting, I made up one little nightmare scene and put it into the film. It was the big hit of the screening. So, then, they came to me and said, 'Listen, what we need is more of that stuff. What we're doing is adding to the deaths of few people, a jump for the beginning, a new closing scene and two nightmares - that sort of Wes Craven touch'." After negative reactions from preview audiences that saw Craven's first cut of the film and wanted a much more grisly film, it was re-edited and the gorier deaths and all of the other re-shot scenes were included, but these scenes only made the film look like a mash-up of two different genres: a family-friendly film and a straight-up horror film. While new scenes were added, others like more scenes between Paul and Samantha that would have made the movie more of a love story as originally intended were deleted for pacing and length because it was decided that the movie was to be released as a fast-paced horror film.

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Goofs

When Paul tells his mom he is picking up the broken glass, you see his hands are holding the glass. In the next shot, his hands are not holding the glass.

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Quotes

Paul Conway: [Tom falls off his bike] Geez. Arey ou all right?
Tom: What the hell is that?
Paul Conway: Oh, his name is BB. Are you all right?
BB: BB.
Tom: Yeah, sure. Ha. Is he for real? Where did you get him?
Paul Conway: I made him. What's your name?
Tom: Tom.
Paul Conway: BB, this is Tom.
[BB puts his mechanical arm out to shake hands]
Paul Conway: Come on, it's okay.
[...]

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Alternate Versions

The original release of the movie contained cuts which were implemented by the MPAA in order to prevent an X rating. Scenes for which movie kept getting X rating were all the gore scenes which were re-shot by studio orders. Movie was submitted to the MPAA 13 times before it finally got an R rating. Uncut scenes have been restored on the DVD release from the Twisted Terror Collection released by Warner Bros. on Sept. 25th, 2007. These scenes are:

• When Samantha is dreaming about her father coming into her bedroom and she breaks a vase and stabs him with it, close-ups of Sam's face getting hosed with blood are present.
• After Samantha murders her father in the basement boiler, Paul comes in and pulls the upper half of his body from the boiler and you get several more seconds and close-ups of his charred skeletal face.
• The infamous 'basketball' scene in which Samantha kills Elvira with a basketball is extended to show more of Elvira's head exploding all over the wall and her headless body walking directly from the wall instead of cutting back to Samantha's face and then showing the body walking around as in the VHS release.

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Connections

Featured in 31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Deadly Friend (1986) (2018)

User Reviews

An artificial Kristy Swanson!? Where can I get on of those???

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.