Deadly Friend (1986)
When I began watching Deadly Friend, I wasn’t expecting to see Matthew Labyorteaux (Little House on the Prairie), Kristy Swanson, or Anne Ramsey. I wasn’t expecting to discover a film directed by Wes Craven. I wasn’t expecting a robot named BB, a cross between Johnny 5 from Short Circuit and the robots from Chopping Mall, to be voiced by Charles “Roger Rabbit” Fleischer. Most of all, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this film as much as I did.
As Deadly Friend opens we see Paul (a teenage genius) and his mother relocating to a college town. Paul is the creator of BB, a robot with a nearly human capability to learn. Shortly after moving in, Paul meets another boy his age (Tom) and his next door neighbor, Samantha, who lives with her abusive father.
BB is cute, but there are hints he’s not as innocent as his cute face would seem. Early on we witness BB nearly kill a potential purse snatcher, and dispose of a neighborhood bully with a metallic pincher to the crotch. Unfortunately while trying to retrieve an errant basketball, BB turns out to be no match for cranky Anne Ramsey’s shotgun. Bye bye, BB.
BB isn’t the only one being disassembled. After a night of drinking, Sam’s father hits her with a right cross that sends her tumbling down a flight of stairs and headfirst into a wall below, leaving her braindead. Before the hospital has a chance to pull the plug, Paul comes up with an idea — if he can transplant BB’s brain into Sam’s body, he could save her life.
Or, you know, turn her into a killer human robot. One or the other.
Fortunately for Paul, reanimating Sam’s corpse and replacing her dead brain with a computer is as simple as cutting a square into her skull, mashing a CPU down into her gray matter, and sewing up the patch. Paul spends a little time teaching Sam/BB to walk all over again, but fortunately he doesn’t have to teach her how to kill! Not only does Sam quickly even the score with her father, but BB’s murder is also quickly avenged.
(Never play basketball with a killer robot.)
Sure, you can spend the movie wondering how that CPU works, or why Sam walks around like a cross between a zombie, a robot, and a Vulcan, but you’ll be wasting your brain cycles. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, and reanimating your dead girlfriend’s corpse isn’t always a great idea. Okay, it’s almost never a great idea, but in some cases, it’s a really bad idea, especially when your creation gets all emo and sad. Best-laid plans, and all.
What begins as a killer robot movie ends as Frankenstein, with people chasing BB/Sam through the streets. The way BB/Sam is defeated honestly makes no sense, and the film concludes with a Wes Craven twist scene that makes literally less than zero sense. Despite the last five minutes, the film remains entertaining. It’s a little creepy, a little kooky, and a whole lot of fun. If the film has any fault at all, it’s that the more you think about it, the more difficult it becomes to root against the antagonist.
Tags: halloween2020, horror