Deadly Friend

Deadly Friend is a 1986 science fiction horror film directed by Wes Craven. It is based on the 1985 novel Friend by Diana Henstell.

Plot
Teen genius Paul Conway, his mother, and his robot creation BB move to a new neighborhood. There, he meets a delivery boy, Tom, and his neighbor, Samantha. When both Samantha and BB suffer untimely deaths, however, nothing will get in Paul's way to bring both of them back.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The movie was originally filmed as a romantic thriller with no graphic violence and more focus on character development and drama, but after test audiences reacted poorly, the studio demanded it be turned into a horror film, resulting in a post-production rewrite and reshoots. The resulting movie is very different from its original cut, with Craven and writer Bruce Joel Rubin ultimately disowning it. When this new cut was screened for test audiences, though, they complained about it having too much gore, which required further edits. Most of the film's problems can be attributed to the rewrite and reshoot.
 * 2) Due to aforementioned post-production revamp, the gore and horror elements seem forced and out-of-place.
 * 3) The sudden change in plot from a whimsical teenage romance to a horror movie is also jarring.
 * 4) The removal of many scenes make a lot of the characters come off as rather flat.
 * 5) The special effects haven't aged well.
 * 6) Despite being smart, Paul makes a number of dumb and morally reprehensible decisions, like stealing his love interest's corpse and sticking BB's robot brain inside to bring her back to life.
 * 7) Many of the horror sequences come off as less scary and more unintentionally hilarious.
 * 8) The ending (where Samantha/BB revives once again, this time as a robotic monster) comes off as stupid.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The unintentional humor in some scenes is still entertaining.
 * 2) * In particular is the scene where Samantha/BB throws a basketball at a woman's head with enough force to make it explode.
 * 3) The film's concept is interesting, even if it was ruined by executive meddling.

Trivia
As of 2020, the original uncut version of the film has yet to be released. A few scenes from the original version can be seen in the theatrical trailer and on the Lost Media Wiki.

Videos
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