The Revisited series looks back at the 1986 film Deadly Friend, directed by Wes Craven and starring Kristy Swanson
I’d say we all have to acknowledge certain directors in the horror genre as undisputedly great. You can rank them however you like but there’s really no argument to be made against Wes, George, John, and Tobe leaving indelible marks on the genre we all love. So much so in fact that I didn’t even have to use their last names for you to know exactly who I’m referring to. While Carpenter is my favorite and I believe his run of quality is better than any of the others listed, Craven has more all-time classics. I’d say Craven has more stinkers too, but I think it’s that disparity that makes stuff like today’s film fall under the radar. While Deadly Friend isn’t as good as The Serpent and the Rainbow, The People Under the Stairs, or Red Eye, it’s certainly better than stuff like Swamp Thing, Deadly Blessing, or The Hills Have Eyes Part II, dog flashback be damned. Let’s take a look back at a movie that ended up being drastically different than it was originally conceived as and revisit Deadly Friend.
Coming off the made for TV movie Chiller in 1985 after the full year of 1984, Wes Craven and writer Bruce Joel Ruben were drawn to a novel that was released by Diana Henstell titled Friend. It followed a love story between pre-teens and how far one would go to save or bring back the person they loved. The book heavily focuses on the sci-fi aspect of the main kids’ robot Bee Bee and the transformation into Sam with the horror being focused on the adults around them and showing how terrifying everyday people could be. The first script and even most of what was shot was actually designed this way, but Warner Brothers soon found out what Craven did the previous year and wanted a more blood-soaked horror movie to capitalize. They did the reshoots and released it in October to push that spooky feeling. The movie was a critical and commercial failure when it was released on October 10th, 1986, with a haul of under 9 million on an 11-million-dollar budget. Ouch.
Not for a lack of talent though. Craven doesn’t need to be dissected here but writer Bruce Joel Ruben has had a very interesting career. He is actually an Oscar winner for his original screenplay for 1990’s runaway success Ghost with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and fellow Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg. His other 12 credits include a random collection of stuff like Deep Impact, Stuart Little 2, and a personal favorite, Jacob’s Ladder. The cast is a fun collection too. Samantha is played by Kristy Swanson who had a hell of a debut feature film year in 1986. While she was the star of this, mostly, she also appeared in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Matthew Labyorteaux would make this his last on-screen appearance before moving exclusively to voice work, but he was huge on Little House on the Prairie before this. The rest of the cast is filled out with character actors Anne Ramsey from The Goonies, Richard Marcus from Tremors, and Roger Rabbit himself or the zodiac killer Richard Fleischer as the voice of BB.
The movie follows a typical 80s pattern with bullies, fun robots, good parents and bad, childhood friendships and loves, and of course since it’s a horror movie, copious amounts of gore. These added scenes had to be trimmed down to get an R rating, and the team of Craven and Ruben were trying to make a PG or PG13. That wasn’t to be and while a more introspective horror flick with Cravens deft hand could have been great, the extra gore is one of my favorite aspects and quite ludicrous. The basketball death, you know the one, is so fun and over the top that it can be watched on loop without context and enjoyed for its pure schlock. The other scenes they added are just as memorable, but the last one especially is derided but we will get to that one.
The stuff I don’t like about the movie starts with BB and his noises. The thing was expensive to make, and it was Frankenstein’s monster of various parts to put together. It would be done better a year later with Johnny 5 in Short Circuit and as much as I love Charles Fleischer, it’s really annoying here. I respect the work that was put into it and it’s certainly unique but it’s hard to listen to and ranges from distracting to bad. Once he is destroyed by a shotgun wielding stereotypical angry neighbor named Elvira and put into Samantha’s body, it’s a lot better. It gives Kristy Swanson a chance to stretch her legs and something I never noticed was that the way she holds her hands are mimicking the hands of the BB robot. She is menacing when she has to be but also pulls sympathy from the audience. That’s what makes the ending my other pain point for the movie.
The whole time Samantha is a mixed bag of murderous robot and scorned girl. It’s a well-played scenario where you aren’t sure if she is killing the bad adults because of the robot side of her protecting Paul or of these adults hurting her human body and soul before the death. The ending SHOULD have been when Samantha is killed just after getting back some of her humanity when one of the cops mistakenly shoots her when he thinks she is going to kill someone. It tells the moral of not messing with things that God and science can’t fix yet and ends on a somber note BUT the bad adults were also punished for their crimes. What we get instead was an add on ending that the very head of Warner Brothers asked for. Paul sneaks back into the morgue to start the process over again and Samantha rips her skin off revealing an altered version of BB underneath. It chokes Paul and eventually breaks his neck after the screen shifts. If this had been, as my buddy Mike Bracken the horror geek says, Football Practice, and Paul woke up, I’d be ok with it. Where it ends almost turns it into an EC comic or Tales from the Crypt episode. Does it look cool? Yes. Is it dumb as hell? Also, yes and even though I normally love that, it just fails here.
The stuff that works thankfully outweighs my gripes. I think poor Samantha’s situation with her father is heartbreaking and I feel for Paul loving her and his mom wanting to help rather than the typical ignore attitude. The dream sequence, and Craven knows a thing or two about dream sequences, is delightfully unhinged and another fun insert on the same page as the ones mentioned above. When Samantha kisses Paul and then goes home to get killed by her father, it actually gives that dream sequence a deep sense of dread and sadness that you wouldn’t expect from a mid-80’s horror movie. Normally I want a horror movie to get to the actual horror but I like the character building that Deadly Friend does and even the time it spends ramping up after Samantha is brought back adds a little something.
Ok I mentioned its based on a book and I’m our adaptation guy so of course I bought the book so you don’t have to. I know the Arrow himself, John Fallon, is a big fan of both and it’s different enough that it deserves a read. Some of the main differences are the kids being much younger, BB being destroyed by Samantha’s dad instead of Elvira, Elvira dying by drowning in a tub rather than basketball induced head explosion, and an ending that is much more fitting to both this kind of love story and is less tacked on and nihilistic. Its cynical, sure, but its also up in the air enough to let you decide what happens. There are quite a few more differences but those are just a taste. Its under $20 on Amazon or I’m sure you can find a copy of it somewhere.
The movie wasn’t complete when it was originally released on video. It did make it to DVD eventually where it was restored to its original gore. That disc would also come in a pack with Carpenter’s Someone’s Watching Me and Oliver Stone’s The Hand. There was also Eyes of a Stranger, but I genuinely have no memory of that. The movie got its solo release on Blu-ray from Scream Factory with some special features and one heck of a cool cover. While Craven and Ruben were ultimately disappointed, Swanson looks back on it with pride now. The original Vampire Slayer actress had a really hard time at first with both the material and the crew, but Craven ended up pushing her in the right way and she came out better for it. Wes was one of a kind and made this movie during one of the best and worst times of his life. On the one hand he had released two movies the previous year including a franchise starting all timer in A Nightmare on Elm Street. On the other hand, he was going through a nasty divorce and faced a 30-million-dollar lawsuit alleging his most famous story wasn’t even his. The movie should be more of a mess knowing that.
Deadly Friend isn’t going to top anyone’s top list for either 80s horror or movies by Craven. That being said, its better than you remember and as long as you enjoy it in the right mindset, it’s a fun movie to watch with some friends or catch on TV. It’s a revisit worth bringing a dead friend back to life for.
Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!
This post was originally published on here
