Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

a_chinn Campy low point for writer/director Wes Craven with this teenage version of Frankenstein. I do respect Craven, but when a teenage boy genius decides to resurrect his neighborhood friend, Kristy Swanson, after she's killed by her abusive father using his knowledge of robotics, the film is amazingly silly. I'm really not sure how a decapitation scene by a roughly thrown basketball can be taken seriously. The casting of Anne Ramsey in a pre-Throw Momma From the Train role makes me wonder if this was intentionally campy, but I'm still not so sure. Craven later found a perfect balance of horror, camp, and black humor with "The People Under the Stairs," but if that was the intent here, it didn't quite come off. Still, I was never bored watching this film and was certainly entertained, which is more than can be said for most horror films.

Claudio Carvalho 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.

Nick7080 Yes, it has very over the top plot and some scenes are both crazy and funny, but it's still one of my fave movies ever. For very long time now i am huge fan of it, and i don't care about all the crap i might get, i'm not gonna change my opinion.I know, this movie has lot of problems with mixed direction and forced horror scenes, but i don't think that it's as bad as some of the Craven's other work like Hills Have Eyes 2. And it's important to know that most of the problems that Deadly Friend has is not because of the director, but because of the Warner Bros studio. But getting back to the movie;Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin did a good job with script, even though it's somewhat obvious that some of it was changed and added because of studio requests. Rubin also wrote scripts for two great movies from 1990; Jacob's Ladder which i am a huge fan of, and Ghost.As for movie, i think that actors did a good job with their roles, script works for about 90% of the movie (hey,i have to be honest, right?), horror atmosphere is quite good, jump scares are sometimes predictable but they work, gore scenes were not really needed (more on that later), but even though some are laughable, i think that they are actually well done with solid makeup effects and infamous "basketball kill" is definitely one of the funniest kills ever and one of the best head explosions i ever saw in movie, along with the ones in Scanners, Maniac and Prowler. Nightmare scenes from movie are often called stupid, but i think that they were quite creepy to be honest, specially one where Sam dreams about killing her dad. Hey, if Wes Craven is directing a nightmare scene, then you know it's a good one.Some people would probably disagree with me, but i think that ending, at least first part of it, is quite sad. But that second part with ultra stupid and idiotic "she's a robot!" ending is one thing that i absolutely hate.After doing some research i found out that movie was originally very different then what was released. It was originally meant to be more of a love story then horror, but producers from Warner Bros had different ideas and Craven was told to make the movie bloodier. I think that it's damn shame. If all gore was taken out, movie would still be solid horror and with, like they originally wanted, interesting and dark love story.You can actually see that there was more to this film with the romance subplot, and few of those scenes between Paul and Sam after she's been brought back to life are very well done both by director and actors. And i'm not talking about scenes when he tries to hide her or when he runs into the murder scene, i'm talking about scenes like when Sam is looking at photos of her and Paul and when she shows him one of those photos. Movie would probably benefit more from those scenes, and original cut probably did have more of that.Instead, what we got is movie that jumps from "kids" horror to usual over the top 80's horror. More serious subjects that it touches, like child abuse are almost overshadowed with gore scenes that really don't feel like they fit anywhere.I can see why Craven and Rubin disowned the movie, which is too bad cause i would really like to see how different original version was before they had to changed it. I'm a sucker for movies that have been tempered with in post production from one reason or another, so maybe that's one of the reasons why i appreciate this movie for what it could have been or for what it originally was.I know that i'm probably one of the few fans that this movie has, but either way, i still love it and i would recommend it to everyone who are interested in entertaining, fun horror movie.

Lucien Lessard An brilliant but lonely teenager Paul (Matthew Laborteaux) and his mother (Anne Twomey) moved in a small town for Paul's education at College. Paul becomes close friends with an abused neighbor named Sam (Kristy Swanson) and a neighborhood teen named Tom (Michael Sharrett). Both kids are impressive with Paul's robot named BB (Voiced by Charles Fletcher). Paul's life turns upside down, when BB got destroyed by a paranoid old lady (Anne Rasmey) and Sam's father (Richard Marcus) accidentally killed his daughter by pushing her down the stairs. When the doctors can't save Sam. Paul decides to save Sam by using Artificial Intelligence Marco-chip brain from BB to put on Sam's brain. Which the operation turns out to be a success but Sam also shares the memories of BB. Now both minds are going to have their personal revenge.Directed by Wes Craven (Scream Trilogy, Music of the Heart, Red Eye) made an entertaining although very flawed horror film. Which is based on a novel by Diana Henstell titled "Friend". Reportely director Craven and Oscar-Winning screenwriter:Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Jacob's Ladder, My Life) were unhappy with the final product of the feature. Craven said that the studio wanted to be more like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" type scares. Which Craven wanted to do something completely different. Only actress Swanson is somewhat proud of the feature, especially in the infamous sequence... where she's beheaded her nasty neighbor with a Basketball! DVD has an fine anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1) transfer and an decent Dolby 2.0 Mono Sound. DVD's only special feature is the original theatrical trailer. "Deadly Friend" is actually one of the few movies of Craven that actually offers more Heart than expected. What nearly ruined the impact of the picture is the silly, outrageous conclusion. Warner Bros probably forced Craven to filmed that ending. What most of Craven's endings in movies were always satisfying, which this one isn't. Overall... for a horror film is pretty entertaining. This is worth a look but this certainly deserved to be remade. (*** 1/2 out of *****).