Thursday, June 07, 2007

Deadly Friend

Wes Craven | 1986 | 91 min. | USA

Meet Paul. A young student who should be in high school, but who's just moved to a new town to go to university on a full scholarship. Making the move with Paul is his mother, and his best friend, BB the robot. Designed and built by Paul, BB is equipped with some of the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world. Lately, he's been acting a little weird though. Maybe a little too independent. A little too aggressive. Is it possible for a robot to have violent thoughts?

Then there's Sam, the beautiful girl next door (Kristy Swanson), whose father's an abusive alcoholic. Paul and Sam like each other, but are constantly being pulled apart by Sam's father.

On Halloween, BB meets an untimely demise at the end of Elvira Parker's (the old lady across the street who all the kids are afraid of, played by Momma from Throw Momma From The Train) shotgun.

On Thanksgiving, Sam meets an untimely demise by way of being drunkenly shoved down a flight of stairs by her father.

Paul could barely handle BB gone. How could he possibly live without Sam? But what could he do to bring Sam back? Maybe he could put BB's computer chip into her brain? Yeah!! That crazy enough, it... just... might... work. But remember that BB was acting strangely before he was shot. Will that violent behaviour be passed on to Sam? Of course it will.

Deadly Friend isn't in the same league as A Nightmare On Elm Street, even though it was made only two years later, but it's one of the more enjoyable Wes Craven movies I've seen for sure. The gore is minimal, but the few moments of it are fun. One is a slight nod to Freddy, even.

More reasons to seek Deadly Friend out? BB the robot talks like a retarded Jawa, Kristie Swanson wears blue eye shadow around her eyes to show that she's resurrected, and it has a wonderfuly ridiculous ending.

Deadly Friend isn't on DVD unfortunately, so dust off your VCRs and LD players.

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