Little House on the Prairie star Matthew Labyorteaux plays Paul Conway, a high school wunderkind who has just moved into a new neighborhood with his mother (Anne Twomey) and his robot BB (voiced by Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleischer, who sounds a hell of a lot like Frank Welker doing Stripe in Gremlins). Within a couple of days, Paul meets a new friend in paperboy Tom (Savage Dawn’s Michael Sharrett), the town bullies, the town kook (The Goonies’ Anne Ramsey), and Samantha, the beautiful blonde teen next door (the lovely pre-Buffy the Vampire Slayer Kristy Swanson), who suffers terrible abuse from her drunken father.
Working alongside an esteemed professor at Polytech University, Paul may have a breakthrough in neuroscience – the same microchip that powers BB could be used to assist (or even re-animate) brain dead tissue and restore motor functions in someone paralyzed. It’s a pipe dream, up until BB is destroyed by the psycho neighbor, and Samantha’s father knocks her down the stairs, giving her a brain hemorrhage that leaves her in a vegetative state.
In a fit of desperation, Paul and Tom sneak Samantha out of the hospital when life support is pulled, and insert the microprocessor from BB into her brain, reviving her. Unfortunately, BB was undergoing a sort of autonomous development prior to being destroyed, and now Samantha, essentially a pallid, motorized corpse, has just enough wherewithal to enact revenge against her father and BB’s psycho neighbor – and God help anyone that gets in her/it’s way.
Deadly Friend (1986)
⭐️⭐️1/2
Sort of a photo negative of that year’s earlier, more whimsical robot flick Short Circuit, Deadly Friend is director Wes Craven’s ode to Frankenstein in a lot of ways – most obvious being a scientist’s attempt at bringing life to a dead being and it running amok and ruining his (and by extension, his family and friend’s) life. Swanson finds a comfortable balance between cute and creepy with her cold, wide-eyed performance, but Brainstorm screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin’s adaptation of Diana Henstell’s book “Friend” never goes all the way with BB/Samantha’s new self-discovery/loathing. There’s a moment or two where she seems to recognize Paul as her former friend/creator, and even a moment that starts poignant enough, with BB/Samantha holding up a photo of their little group with tears in her eyes.
But neither Craven nor Rubin explore these corners in characteristics, focusing more on the carnage she/it can create, and peppering in some nightmare sequences that feel cast off of unused Elm Street ideas. Labyorteaux and Sharrett’s friendship has more weight than the plot at hand and even shakes out a few laughs in the paperboy’s squeamish tendency to faint dead away as gruesome plot developments occur, but even that relationship – though well-performed – feels half-full. Factor in some situational, sitcom-style comedy in trying to keep BB/Samantha hidden from everyone, and Deadly Friend winds up a fairly amusing, but extremely clunky machine.
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Deadly Friend took 20 years to reach the digital age after its VHS release in the spring of 1987 and was included as part of Warner Bros. 6-Disc Twisted Terrors Collection in the fall of 2007, along such titles as The Hand, Dr. Giggles, Someone’s Watching Me, From Beyond the Grave, and Eyes of a Stranger. Supplements were scant, with many of these releases containing little more than a trailer (or less than that).
Thankfully, the gang over at Scream Factory picked up the license for Deadly Friend and released it as a pretty decent Collector’s Edition in the fall of 2021, porting over the trailer from the Warner Bros. DVD, and including a small, but informative array of exclusive supplements that included:
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HD Widescreen, scanned in 2K from the Interpositive.
- Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio English Mono 2.0
- Subtitles: English
- Hey Sam, Nice Shot: Interview with Actress Kristy Swanson
- Written in Blood: Interview with Writer Bruce Joel Ruben
- Robots, Ramsey, and Revenge: Interview with Effects Artist Lance Anderson
- Samantha’s Symphony: Interview with Composer Charles Bernstein
- (Archival) Trailers
- TV Spots
- Reversible Cover Insert featuring newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch on one side, and the original theatrical one-sheet on the other.
- Limited Edition Slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch
Bits ‘N’ Pieces
Traum-A-Meter:
3 out of 4
Deadly Friend has themes involving bullying and child abuse, both of which feature some beatings – one of which cascades into Samantha’s death. But once she and BB become one mind, things get nasty! Lots of snapped and broken bones, a man burned to death, a dude hit by a car, and the film’s infamous showstopper: a basketball lobbed at someone’s head so hard it explodes in a gory cranium blast of bloody chunks!
Today’s Jam: “When I Think of You” by Janet Jackson was at the top of the charts while Samantha was thinking only of settling scores.
TODAY’S MORAL:
My property. My house. My ball.