Career of every film maker has its ups and downs, and sometimes it can have points that are downright embarrassing. In case of horror genre master Wes Craven such point was his 1986 film Deadly Friend.
The film is based on Friend, science fiction novel by Diana Henstell. It begins when Paul Conway (played by Matthew Labyorteaux), teenage science prodigy moves with his mother Jeannie (played by Anne Twomey) to new neighbourhood in order to be close to Polytech, prestigious university where he studies neuroscience. Paul has developed microprocessor with ability to learn by itself and it uses it to power his robot called BB (voiced by Charles Fleischer). He soon gains two new friends – newspaper delivery boy Tom Toomey (played by Michael Sharett) and Samantha “Sam” Pringle (played by Kristy Swanson), girl who lives in house next door. Paul would soon lose persons he cares about - BB is destroyed by cranky neighbour Elvira Parker (played by Anne Ramsey) during Halloween prank, while Sam ends in coma after being hit by her alcoholic and abusive father Harry (played by Richard Marcus). After learning that Sam will be taken off life support Paul devises desperate plan. He steals her body from hospital and implants BB’s chip in her brain in hope that he would revive her. The plan apparently works but resurrected Sam is robot-like and soon starts murderous revenge against those who harmed her.
Deadly Friend failed at the box office and most critics believe that such fate was well-deserved. The script by Bruce Joel Rubin (who would pen much more successful films, like Ghost, in near future) is burdened with cliches, one-dimensional and mostly dislikeable characters who fate cozld be easily guessed and often uninspired dialogue. But the biggest flaw of the film is tonal shift from what was supposed to be Spielbergian family-friendly drama featuring supposedly cute (but actually quite annoying) robot into typical 1980s horror with plenty of gore and graphic violence. Craven seems at odds what he tries to make, and Deadly Friend often looks much cheaper than it actually is. Cast, despite their talents, have little to do, although Michael Sharrett, to his credit does solid job as Paul’s friend and voice of reason. Kristy Swanson, young statuesque actress who possessed natural “girl next door charm” is wasted in the role that, for the most part, demands her to wake ridiculous zombie-like makeup and perform mime-like movements that look like cheap parody of Frankenstein monster. Craven later blamed everything on Warner Bros. studio for meddling into production and demanding constant re-shoots and script changes; what was supposed to be tender adolescent love story was turned into standard 1980s slasher film. Especially disappointing is ending, which made no sense in the context of story, and which was often blamed on Marc Canton, vice president of Warner Bros. at the time. Film, on the other hand, has few moments close to “it’s so bad it’s good” territory, and that might explain why it has something of a cult following. Those moments might include killing with basketball as murder weapon – a scene which is for some the only reason why should anyone see this film. Viewers that lack such morbid curiosity should spare their time and attention for something more deserving, though.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417 Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
