Deadly Friend (1986)

Paul Conway (Matthew Labyorteaux) and his mother Jeannie Conway (Anne Twomey) travel to a new town where Paul will join the local university invited by Dr. Johanson (Russ Marin). They bring the robot BB that was developed by Paul, who is a genius in robotic. Paul befriends the paperboy Tom Toomey (Michael Sharrett) and has a crush on his next door neighbor Samantha Pringle (Kristy Swanson), whose abusive alcoholic father Harry Pringle (Richard Marcus) frequently hurts her. One day, Paul, Sam, Tom and BB are playing basketball and the ball fall in the field of their paranoid grumpy neighbor Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey) that does not give it back to the teenagers. In Halloween, Tom convinces Paul to let BB open the padlock of the entrance to her house. However, there is an alarm system and Elvira blows up BB with her shotgun. Then Harry pushes her daughter down the stairs and the doctors let her brain-dead connected to the life support. However Paul convinces Tom to go to the hospital to rescue Sam and then he implants BB's chip into her brain resurrecting Samantha. But will she come back to life normal?"Deadly Friend" is an underrated cult movie from the 80's directed by Wes Craven in the beginning of his successful career. The story of friendship begins as a drama, with Samantha receiving bad treatment from he abusive father, and sci-fi with BB, maybe with one of the first artificial intelligence of the cinema. When Samantha becomes a zombie- robot, the plot becomes terror, but without gore, in the style of Franklenstein. Kristy Swanson is gorgeous and has a great chemistry with Matthew Labyorteaux. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Maldição de Samantha" ("The Samantha's Course")Note: On 28 Nov 2016, I saw this film again.

Everyone who knows anything about horror movies knows that Wes Craven is a horror legend because of films like The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream. But I personally feel this is one of Wes Craven's best films and is very underrated. To start with, it has interesting characters that are easy to relate to which I feel is a very important thing for any film to have because if you don't care about the characters, you won't care what happens to them and if the viewers don't care what happens in a film then it is a total failure. Matthew Laborteaux (who people may know as Albert from The Little House on the Prairie) is perfectly cast as Paul Conway, the main character of the film who is a genius and is even friends with an adorable robot named BB. His convincing performance makes the character likable and easy to care about. Kristy Swanson plays the character of Samantha who I personally felt very sorry for because she had to live with an abusive alcoholic of a father. Her character's life is very sad and she doesn't deserve to go through what she has to on a daily basis. Another performance that stood out was Anne Ramsey as Elvira, the grouchy old next door neighbor the audience loves to hate. Her performance was hilarious because she was so mean and her crotchety attitude made for some great and memorable moments.This film starts out as your typical, cheerful '80s movie about the new kid in town and has a light, comedic atmosphere to begin with. But when the film becomes serious, there are very emotional moments that will definitely leave an impact on the viewer's psyche. It touches on issues such as alcoholism, domestic abuse, love, and death. The story is very creative. It is a love story as well as a horror film and to me it doesn't feel like any other film I've ever seen. There is one death scene that most audiences remember this film for. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it for you, but if you have, you know exactly what scene I'm referring to. The death sequence came out of nowhere and was immensely shocking. Overall, this was a well written, well acted film with interesting characters. The only flaw I noticed with the film is the ending. Again, I don't want to give too much away for those who haven't seen the film but it is not the way I would've ended the film whatsoever. But other than that, the film is perfect and one of my absolute favorites of all time. If you haven't seen this film yet, you absolutely should because it is a true, underrated classic.

Being a genius can be a plus, and/or it can be a minus. For this movie, it goes both ways. "Deadly Friend" is one horror classic in the making. In this here sci-fi/horror, you got a young genius name Paul (Matthew Laborteaux, "Little House on the Prairie") who have a robot friend named BB. He lives with his single mother (Anne Twomey) who relocated to a small town where Paul can study neurology. Next door there's a girl named Sam (Kristy Swanson) who lives with her drunken, abusive father. Other than that there's a reclusive old woman (Anne Ramsey, 1929-88), who keeps her house locked tighter than Fort Knox. After befriending Sam and Tom, all three have a great time. Until when the mean Elvira take her shotgun to BB, and blow him away, after she refuses to return the basketball. Later, Sam is attacked by her monster of a father, and is left brain dead. When they bring Sam's body out of the hospital, Paul takes BB's chip and put it in her brain. When she is revived, Paul wanted to further study more on artificial intelligence. However, the side effect happens when memories from BB and Sam merges, the inevitable happens. When BB had a disdain of both Sam's father and Elvira the recluse, the rage ensures. Sam confronts and kills her abusive father, and after entering Elvira's house, Sam grabbed the basketball, and crushed her head with it. Paul couldn't believe this is happening he wanted to help a friend, but the consequences follows along when you turn it into a killing machine. This movie could have gone further, it could have had more to the plot. It's too subtle. 2 out of 5 stars.

The everyday story of one boy and his robot moving to a new house and making new friends and enemies.But seeing as this is Wes Craven, something sinister is bound to happen. with a basket ball!It's an odd choice of movie for Craven, seeing that he had just made one of the most iconic horror movies of all time two years earlier, but there is still a lot of fun to be had.I had no idea what the main plot device was, I just knew it was a Craven film I had never heard of, so I thought the first act was about a killer robot, and that 'BB' would become more sinister as the film progressed.Then Kristy Swanson, gets thrown down the stairs, and then we are back in full Craven mode, with a little eighties cheese thrown in.The performances are okay, Paul spends the film looking sweaty, Swanson is good, but the Darryl Hannah eye make up thing doesn't look like your decaying. And for some reason, Paul's friend just keeps fainting.The basketball scene is truly amazing, and depending on how you are feeling, you will either laugh or just groan.It's a very hard to find movie, but if you do find it, and love all things eighties, this will suit you.And it's a guarantee this will never be remade..