danol

In One Word - Outstanding!!
Deadly Friend is a largely unknown film from acclaimed director Wes Craven, who became famous for movies like The Hills Have Eyes etc..

If you give a chance to this thriller you will find something very original and scary...very scary! Deadly Friend is a genuinely frightening experience, it has such a great story that catches you from the beginning to the end. 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. Paul is a new kid in town, and he is a genius in computers and robots. He falls in love with the kind, sweet and vulnerable girl next door, Samantha, but everything ends up bad when Samantha's abusive father kills her. The guy freaks out and steals Samantha's body. He uses all his knowledge in machines and computer chips, and achieves to bring her back...as a killer robot!he takes her to his attic but she soon starts to kill the persons who used to humiliate her.



The Cast: the cast is great, terrific performances are delivered by the main actors. Kristy Swanson is outstanding as Samantha, in the first hour of the film she is so sweet you may fall in love with her, in the last hour she is *scary* as hell. She is an excellent young star. 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 is 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.

Sunday Morning

You are evil! I consider this to be craven's least film. It feels like it was shot on a sound stage (probably was) and everyone in the film is as wooden as the deadly friend.

marty888

I'll stick with Re-Animator.

mikewendt

danol, what company do you work for?

Just kidding...

Snowmaker

"Bee-bee!"

What about Shocker?

DRG

I'd like this on DVD just for nostalgia reasons. It's not a great movie, but I find it entertaining.

shaggy

I would love to replace my laserdisc with the DVD, Craven is very DVD friendly so we might get a commentary, which would be great

danol

Mike don't I wish, sitting on your pink butt, well at least 5 inches for the skin they took, for my 3rd degree burn. 1-8 inch and 3-4 inch surgery which is still scarred for 18+ years is not as fun as you think it is. It's Boring, you can only dream at night of waking up to be able to walk or until your into some DVD like Panic Room Superbit, then your ready to explode with fear and can't sleep.


P.S. I have Deadly Friend (vhs) with Kristy Swanson and believe me she worked or the make up department worked on getter her with those deadly looking eyes. If you ever seen Carpenters Prince of Darkness, I had a nightmare as real as Jamison Parkers only instead of the devil it was killer eyes of Samantha. YO

killbot

OK, so Matthew Laborteaux, Laura's big(little?) brother from Little House On The Prarie graduates to a post-Wargames isn't-it-great-to-be-a-hacker-show called Whiz Kids, about a bunch of kids who are real whizzes,you know, with the brainy stuff. Then Wes decides to pose the question: What if the head Whiz Kid kinda had this girlfriend, right? Only her drunk a-hole dad beats her a little too hard one night and puts her into a friggin coma. What would a Whiz Kid do? Well this guy just takes the computer chip brain from his home-made robot and kinda implants it in her head. Yeah, inside her head. This whiz kid pulls off a home brain surgery on his first try. Too bad she's got that whole creepy, back-from-the-dead thing goin', so Matt just hides her in the attic and turns her on and off with a remote control. Eventually she starts wasting everyone who pissed her off during the first half of the movie, and smashes an old lady's head with a basketball. I think that was the single best thing in this movie. Well I'll be damned if I can remember what happened after that, except that at the end, you think she's dead, but she turns out to be still alive, and as she's wasting the Whiz Kid he rips the skin off of her face, and she's got the face of the whiz kid's robot underneath. Was the chip in her brain supposed to have been rebuilding its original robot body inside her? An unfortunate complication from the home brain surgery perhaps. Can anybody please explain this to me? Danol, what's your take? WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF DEADLY FRIEND?

Julie Walker

I haven't seen this is years,but remember it being pretty good.

Wouldn't mind a dvd release...& would love a uncut version(unlikely if Warner still owns ita). Craven says this was one of his films(besides Last House & Shocker) that was cut the most to avoid a X.