After his friend is killed by her abusive father, the new kid in town attempts to save her by implanting a robotic microchip into her brain.After his friend is killed by her abusive father, the new kid in town attempts to save her by implanting a robotic microchip into her brain.After his friend is killed by her abusive father, the new kid in town attempts to save her by implanting a robotic microchip into her brain.
- Awards
- 4 nominations
- Paul
- (as Matthew Laborteaux)
- BB
- (voice)
- Doctor in Sam's Room
- (as William H. Faeth M.D.)
- Robot
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDirector Wes Craven and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin's original vision for the film was a PG-rated supernatural science fiction thriller, with the primary focus being on the macabre love story between Paul and Samantha, as well as a secondary focus on the adults around them and how they are truly monsters inside themselves. Craven filmed this version of the film and Warner Bros. decided to screen it to a test audience mostly consisting of Craven's fans. The response from fans was negative, criticizing the lack of violence and gore seen in Craven's previous films. The studio eventually discovered Craven's popularity as a horror film director. The president of Warner Bros. at the time, Mark Canton, demanded Rubin write six additional gore scenes into his script, each bloodier than the last. Rubin worked very hard with Craven to create a very deep and heartfelt movie out of it. Unfortunately, added gore scenes, re-shoots and post production re-editing of the movie heavily changed the original story. Craven and Rubin expressed strong anger at the studio and thus disowned the film.
- GoofsSam would have had her head shaved prior to her brain surgery.
- Quotes
Sam: [Samantha has a nosebleed] Do you have some ice?
Jeannie Conway: Oh my God. Come on in. Sit down. Paul, get some ice.
[to Samantha]
Jeannie Conway: Hold your head back, back.
[to Paul]
Jeannie Conway: Hurry.
[to Samantha]
Jeannie Conway: What happened?
Sam: Nothing. I just get them sometimes.
Paul Conway: Here you go.
Jeannie Conway: Listen, sweetheart, this may be butting in where I don't belong, but don't you think someone should say something?
Sam: For what, a nosebleed? Come on, I've had them since I was a kid. Ice will take care of it. I just forgot to fill the tray.
Jeannie Conway: Oh, Sam, I don't like this.
Sam: I hate them.
Jeannie Conway: C'mon you know what I mean. It's criminal. He could go to jail.
Sam: He's my father. Sometimes I want to roll a truck over his face but he's still my father.
- Alternate versionsThe original release of the movie contained cuts which were implemented by the MPAA in order to prevent an X rating. Scenes for which movie kept getting X rating were all the gore scenes which were re-shot by studio orders. Movie was submitted to the MPAA 13 times before it finally got an R rating. Uncut scenes have been restored on the DVD release from the Twisted Terror Collection released by Warner Bros. on Sept. 25th, 2007. These scenes are:
- When Samantha is dreaming about her father coming into her bedroom and she breaks a vase and stabs him with it, close-ups of Sam's face getting hosed with blood are present.
- After Samantha murders her father in the basement boiler, Paul comes in and pulls the upper half of his body from the boiler and you get several more seconds of close-ups of his charred skeletal face.
- The infamous 'basketball' scene in which Samantha kills Elvira with a basketball is extended to show more of Elvira's head exploding all over the wall and her headless body walking directly from the wall instead of cutting back to Samantha's face and then showing the body walking around as in the VHS release.
- ConnectionsEdited into Deadly Friend: Deleted Scenes (1986)
This Wes Craven effort may seem a little dated in these post-Scream days, but watching it for the first time in years I realised it may have been an overlooked slice of mid-eighties teen-horror cinema. It's stylistically similar with the lesser cherished of Craven's films, such as Summer of Fear, Deadly Blessing and Chiller, but, like these mentioned titles is worth revisiting.
It has the usual Craven touches kids in jeopardy, nightmares within-the-film that throw you off balance and dysfunctional relationships, but the film is basically about an intellectual who reanimates his girlfriend by placing the microchip brain of his home made android into her dead body leading murderous results. No one can deny the greatness, if extremely absurd, of that exploding head via basketball scene remains.
Bride of Frankenstein and Short Circuit combined may not suite a lot of pallets, but as Wes Craven films go Deadly Friend is definitely not half as bad as the critics claimed at the time of it's initial release.
- Krug Stillo
- Jun 10, 2003
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- A.I.
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $8,988,731
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $3,804,429
- Oct 13, 1986
- Gross worldwide
- $8,988,731