Wes Craven's "Deadly Friend" - a tender saga of robots and vengeful basketballs

When thinking about some of the biggest colossal flubs in movie history, Wes Craven's "Deadly Friend" has to be near the top of the list. It gets trashed in pretty much every circle of the horror community, but I'm not sure that it's entirely deserving of the criticism. Having said that, yes, the concept is pretty out there. It was doomed at the box office the second that Craven decided to make a movie about a college-age robotics genius who resurrects his dead girlfriend utilizing a high-tech computer chip. Yes, folks, that's what this movie is about. This thing could have been the second coming of Carpenter's "Halloween" when it came to scripting and execution and failed with that premise.

Even better, this film is based on a NOVEL. Now, I haven't read said tome (and I'm far too lazy to look it up on Wikipedia), but it amazes me that Wes Craven chose this source material at this particular point in his career. He'd had successes in the past before this flick's 1986 release year; 1974's "Last House on the Left" was an exploitation film that somehow, some way became a mainstream smash, while 1980's "Swamp Thing" was a minor hit at the box office. Of course, in 1984, a little movie called "Nightmare on Elm Street" came out featuring a certain scarred dream stalker that effectively made Craven rich enough to buy his own solid gold island. So, two years later, with one sequel in the can and another soon to be made in the creation that would make him a veritable horror God...Craven gives us girl next door robo killer. The hell?

Having said all that, this is another flick that holds a great deal of nostalgic value for yours truly. It's one of the many, many films that was introduced to me via the Most Awesome Video Store Ever, so bonus points for that. Hell, it may have been the first movie that I remember renting on some long ago Saturday night. Back then, the flick scared the crap out of me, and after watching it for the first time in over twenty years, there's still some disturbing elements. The concept of corpse reanimation is always something that has frightened me, so regardless of how botched a movie with this theme is (and this is most certainly horrifically botched), it's not something I'll forget anytime soon.

Our star character is Paul Conway, the second kid from the left in the above picture (handy, huh?). He's played by Matthew Laborteaux, and considering some of the material that he has to work with, does a more than commendable job. Paul and his mother (Anne Twomey) have just moved to a new city due to Paul's burgeoning life aspirations. Namely, this kid is a friggin' science genius. See that robot in the above picture? That's his creation.

The robot, named BB (voiced by Charles "Roger Rabbit" Fleischer), is quite the impressive little number. Usually, in horror movies we're given a budget of a #5 McDonald's value meal, but this movie makes the most of its limited means, and BB is a pretty movable, talkable, learnable little tyke. And yes, I'm well aware that I invented two words in that previous sentence, so don't point it out. Paul's specialty is artificial intelligence, meaning that not only can BB assist in combat with the neighborhood toughs and help out with the household chores, he can learn.

Moving swimmingly along, Paul quickly makes two friends in his new neighborhood. Movie best friend "Tom" literally falls into the movie (seriously, the guy tips over on his bike into frame, and that's how Paul meets him - brilliant scripting, I tell ya). Meanwhile, his new neighbor is Samantha Pringle (Kristy Swanson, later known for her role as Buffy the Vampire Slayer), blonde hottie with an abusive father (Richard Marcus - and man what a phlegmy scream this guy has). The early portions of the movie give us the saccharine romance between Paul and Samantha, as well as the tug of war that goes on between the poor girl and her dickhead dad. There's also some nice "kids being kids" moments, such as the Halloween prank gone awry when our trio of oh-so-likable teens try to invade the house of the neighborhood witch (played by Anne Ramsey, and man, she is awesome in every "old c***" role she's had). The result? BB in a heap after being blown to bits by a shotgun.

Soon enough, tragedy strikes. After exchanging their first kiss, Samantha goes home to douchebag father, who promptly slaps her so hard that she falls down the stairs and breaks her neck...and then summarily gets off scott free with the authorities. Paul's answer? Recruit Tom as help, then go and steal Samantha's comatose body and bring her back home, at which point he inserts BB's old circuitry into her higher brain functions and reanimates her.
That picture above is Samantha/Kristy Swanson in her "robotic form," complete with oh-so-creepy vacant stare. To make it even more classic, she's also required to walk around for the remainder of the film in a very stilted, automatic motion, all the while grabbing things with a hand motion that is meant to look like BB's "claw grip" hand, but looks more like she's attempting to impersonate the "live long and prosper" Star Trek slogan. If you want some unintentional comedic gold, this movie's got a boatload of it.

The movie is fairly predictable from here on. In a way, this film is very similar to the Universal classic "Bride of Frankenstein," in which a genius inventor revives a dead woman, and discovers far too late that it's not right to tamper in God's domain, or something. Initially, Samantha appears to remember nothing of her previous life, but her old personality begins to shine through more and more when she sees her father skulking around with a big smarmy smile on his face. That's actually one aspect of this movie that works really well; you REALLY want this tool to get what he deserves, and when it happens, it's a stand up and cheer moment. It's also got a gory-as-f**k additional murder that comes completely out of left field and really works well.

Eventually, Samantha/BB becomes a raging kill-crazy hellbitch, leading to the thrilling conclusion. And by thrilling I mean not thrilling in the least. For some more unintentional comedy, we get an amazing scene where Kristy Swanson dives through a window (arms outstretched like Superman, no less) and tackles hapless Tom, before our oh-so-tender-and-tragic initial ending sequence. If you've seen a horror movie from the '80s, you know that one ending is never enough, so this immediately leads us to the SECOND ending, which is just rock stupid, makes no sense, and effectively euthanizes the movie in the most efficient manner imaginable.

Kristy doing her best Spock impersonation. It's so much more glorious in full motion, believe me.

To be sure, "Deadly Friend" is quite the train wreck. It effectively falls apart in the second half with one nonsensical thing after another happening peppered in between a couple very memorable kill scenes. How memorable? Type "Deadly Friend basketball" into Youtube and get ready to be wowed. The character of Paul goes from barely likable in the beginning of the movie to barely a character in the second half, trying to cover up all of his robotic girlfriend's crimes against the oblivious cops who can't seem to figure out that, holy hell, the guy that just ate the business end of a hot furnace just recently had his daughter's body disappear from the hospital, which might just have something to do with this horrific crime. This is one of those movies that requires some MAJOR suspension of disbelief. Right up there with "The Dark Knight," even.

Looking in between all of that, there are actually some things to commend in this movie. Swanson, for all the crap that she is asked to do, actually puts in a worthwhile performance, as does Richard Marcus as her interminable father and Ramsey as the old bat neighbor. The basketball sequence is nothing short of amazing (for bad reasons as well as good - if you watch this movie in a crowd setting, that scene is sure to be a howling laugh fest). It's slick, it has good production values, and it manages to not get TOO cheesy considering the source material and story that was used. For that, Craven has to be commended for getting the slightest amount of emotion and resonance out of this film.

** out of ****, with an extra 1/2* being tacked on for nostalgia purposes.