Deadly Friend

Deadly Friend
The movie poster for Deadly Friend.
Directed by	Wes Craven
Produced by	Robert L. Crawford Patrick Kelley Robert M. Sherman
Written by	Novel: Diana Henstell Screenplay: Bruce Joel Rubin
Starring	Matthew Laborteaux Kristy Swanson Michael Sharrett Anne Twomey
Music by	Charles Bernstein
Cinematography	Philip H. Lathop
Editing by	Michael Eliot
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	October 10, 1986
Running time	91 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$8,988,731[1]

Deadly Friend is a 1986 science fiction horror film directed by Wes Craven. It is based on the novel entitled Friend by Diana Henstell, which was adapted for the screen by Bruce Joel Rubin.

Plot

College student and science genius Paul Conway (Matthew Laborteaux) and his mother, Jeannie (Anne Twomey), have just moved into a new city. Paul is studying neurology and artificial intelligence at the local college, and has built a remote-controlled robot named BB (voiced by Charles Fleischer), which occasionally shows signs of autonomy. Paul befriends fellow college student Tom (Michael Sharrett), and a girl named Samantha (Kristy Swanson) who lives next door to the Conways. Another neighbor to the Conways is a reclusive harridan named Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey).

On Halloween night as a prank, Paul, Tom and Samantha have BB crack the combination lock on her gate so that they can ring Elvira's doorbell to scare her. When Samantha rings the doorbell, an alarm sounds and all three take cover beside Elvira's porch. As Elvira appears on the porch, wielding a shotgun, BB reactivates himself and starts coming through the fence. Elvira opens fire on the robot, destroying it.

Samantha struggles with an abusive father (Richard Marcus), who ultimately beats her so severely that she is left close to death. The doctors tell Paul that she does not have long to live, and together Paul and Tom steal Samantha's body.

Paul surgically implants BB's AI chip into Samantha's brain. Samantha is activated by BB's remote control and seems to be controlled primarily by BB's AI chip, although flashes of Samantha's memories periodically surface as her personality attempts to assert itself. Governed by this composite of BB's and Samantha's memories, Samantha, now possessing superhuman strength, avenges herself upon Elvira Parker and Samantha's father.

The police track her down to the woodshed where Paul has hidden her, and Samantha's personality appears to gain total domination. This development is short-lived, however, as Samantha takes a bullet intended for Paul. After Samantha dies in Paul's arms, her body is seen in the morgue, where the coroner has just finished his autopsy and has pulled the sheet over her body. When Paul comes for her body, she transforms into a more malevolent version of BB and kills Paul by breaking his neck.

Cast

• Matthew Laborteaux as Paul Conway- the Whiz kid in town
• Kristy Swanson as Samantha Pringle- the Deadly Friend
• Michael Sharrett as Tom 'Slime' Toomey- Local newspaper boy and Paul's friend
• Anne Twomey as Jeannie Conway- Paul's mother
• Richard Marcus as Harry Pringle- Samantha's father, the first one to die
• Anne Ramsey as Elvira Parker- Dies from Basketball to the face.
• Lee Paul as Sergeant Volchek- Kills Samantha
• Charles Fleischer as BB (voice)- an intelligent robot
• Russ Marin as Dr. Johanson- examines Samantha's "seemingly" dead body.
• Joel Hile as Deputy- with the Sergeant when he kills Samantha.

Release

Alternate versions of the movie

The original release of the movie contained cuts which were implemented by the MPAA in order to prevent an X rating . These scenes have been restored on the DVD release from the Twisted Terror Collection released by Warner Bros. on Sept. 25th, 2007. These scenes include:

• In the scene where Samantha is dreaming about her father intruding in her bedroom, Samantha breaks a vase on her nightstand and stabs her father in the stomach with it. In the VHS release all that is shown is blood spurting out on Samantha's bed and close-ups of her father's face laughing and taunting Sam. On the newly released DVD, the scene includes lots of blood spurting out on Sam's face and close ups of Sam's face as she screams and gets coated in blood.

• In the scene where Sam takes her revenge on her murderous father, Sam trips her father on the stairs leading to the boiler room, breaks his neck, and burns his body inside the boiler. In the VHS release, when Paul comes to conceal the body, the scene is edited to briefly show Paul pulling Sam's father out of the boiler, without showing much of his charred body. In the DVD release, when Paul pulls her father's upper body from the boiler, as he pulls him out and puts him on the ground, a close-up of his charred skeletal face is shown.

• In the infamous 'basketball' scene, Samantha crushes Elvira's head with a slam from the basketball that Elvira had stolen from the teens earlier in the movie. In the VHS release, when Sam throws the ball at her, Elvira's head explodes on impact and then cuts back to Sam watching in amazement as Elvira's headless body wanders around the living room until it falls down in the floor. In the DVD release, when Sam throws the ball at Elvira's head, more explosion is shown as Elvira's head completely shatters from her shoulders and shows her headless body wander directly from the wall around the living room, spurting blood and then cuts back to Sam watching in amazement as the body comes to rest on the floor.

• In an earlier version of the movie, Elvira's death was filmed to be less gory than the final shot. Instead of shattering her head with a basketball, Sam smashes Elvira through her front door leaving the upper half of her body hanging outside the door and the lower half still inside. In the same earlier version, in the scene where Paul is dreaming about Sam's father coming up out of his bed, Sam's father comes completely out of the bed and lunges for Paul. In the final cut of the film just his charred head comes out of the bed and exhales smoke. These alternate scenes can be seen in the theatrical trailer found on the new DVD.

References

1. ^ "Deadly Friend - Box Office Data, Movie News, Cast Information - The Numbers". The Numbers. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1986/0DEFR.php. Retrieved 27 August 2011. 

External links

• Deadly Friend at the Internet Movie Database
• Deadly Friend at AllRovi
• Deadly Friend at Box Office Mojo