PopHorror Let's Get Scared
When I was younger, I always loved it when my cousin Marty came down and stayed with us for a few days during the summer. We would always go rent horror movies when he came down and would stay up all night watching them. One of the movies that we rented one night when he came down was Deadly Friend, and we watched it right after we watched Savage Weekend and Creepers (AKA Phenomena) and gorged ourselves on Crunch N’ Munch.
I had read about Deadly Friend in Fangoria before we watched it and went into it hoping that it was going to be as awesome as it sounded. I thought it sounded like it might be a fun movie, so we popped it in the old Quasar VCR and hoped for the best.
So, did I enjoy it as much as I thought I would or should we have just spent the night playing Kung Fu on NES instead?
Keep reading to find out…
Synopsis
After losing his beloved robot BB and his friend/love interest Samantha in two tragic incidents, teenage genius Paul decides to bring them both back by implanting BB’s main microchip into Sam’s brain, with terrifying and disastrous results.
I’m not even going to lie; I absolutely love this movie. It is right up there with Sleepaway Camp and Demons as my three favorite movies of all time, and it will always hold a special place in my heart for reasons I just can’t quite explain. It’s scary and depressing as Hell at the same time and is one of those movies that I could watch a million times and never get tired of. Even though I am not the biggest fan of Wes Craven I think he knocked it out of the park with this movie and that it is his best film aside from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (which is weird because apparently, he didn’t like it and wasn’t proud of it whatsoever thanks to studio meddling).
Based on Diane Henstell’s creepy and totally underrated novel Friend and written by Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Jacob’s Ladder) and directed by Craven (Shocker, The Hills Have Eyes) Deadly Friend is just all around an amazing movie and deserves a lot more love than it gets. I personally find it terrifying since I am scared to death of robots and believe me when I say that I have had countless nightmares about this movie over the years. There is just something that creeps me out about the movie and I think that it is a perfect dark love story that is as touching as it is frightening.
I always dug the premise and thought that it was unique. Basically we have a teenage genius who moves to a new town with his mom and the robot he created named BB (who is starting to display some disturbing behavior when no one is looking) that meets a girl named Samantha who has an abusive father. After BB is destroyed by local weirdo Elvira during a prank gone wrong and Sam is killed by her dad, Paul decides to bring them back to life by implanting BB’s microchip into Sam’s brain. It works, but Sam doesn’t come back just quite right and before you know it, she is killing the people in town who wronged her and BB and anyone else who gets in the way. It all leads to a tragic conclusion that is sure to have most viewers in tears.
One of the best things that the movie has going for it is its cast. Kristy Swanson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Flowers in the Attic) does a fantastic job as Sam and you can’t help but care about her and feel bad for her due to what she is going through with her dad before she dies. She owns this role and is just creepy as they come after she is reanimated (the way that she moves and holds her hands…brr). Matthew Labyorteaux (Little House on the Prairie, Shattered Spirits) is just as impressive as Paul and is just an all-around likable guy. Anne Ramsey (The Goonies, Throw Mama from the Train) is also as awesome as usual as Elvira, and she gets one of the best death scenes in the history of film in this movie. I think that everyone does a wonderful job in their respective roles and helps make the movie as great as it is.
I also love this movie because it legit scares me. As I said earlier, I am terrified of robots, so this movie really freaks me out as a result. Sam is absolutely terrifying in my opinion, and everything about her creeps me out after she returns from the dead. The way she moves is pure nightmare fuel and the voice she uses never ceases to scare the living crap out of me.
The music in the trailer is extremely creepy, and there is just something unsettling and disturbing about the tone of the movie in general (the book it is based on is even scarier, and I had a lot of trouble sleeping for a few nights after I finished reading it because I was certain that I was going to wake up to find Sam standing at the foot of my bed staring at me before she tore me to pieces one night).
I may be in the minority (and may be the only person in the world that feels this way about the movie) but to this day it still creeps me out and is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen in my life. That final scene freaks me out so much that my Spider Senses always tingle for a few hours after I watch it, and I always check and make sure the doors and windows are locked so that evil-looking BB doesn’t pay me a visit.
As you can tell, I am a huge fan of this movie. My wife and I named our dog BB after the robot in this movie, and I just love it immensely. It’s creepy, sad, has a great death scene involving a basketball, and it is just all around an excellent movie. My only complaint is that I wish it had stayed a little closer to the book (Paul and Sam are much younger in the novel and Sam is rotting away more and more with each passing day), but it is still a great movie that never fails to scare the pants off of me. If you a looking for a tragic love story that features several brutal deaths and an overall bleak tone, then this movie is for you. Highly recommended!
