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.

FlashCallahan The everyday story of one boy and his robot moving to a new house and making new friends and enemies.But seeing as this is Wes Craven, something sinister is bound to happen. with a basket ball!It's an odd choice of movie for Craven, seeing that he had just made one of the most iconic horror movies of all time two years earlier, but there is still a lot of fun to be had.I had no idea what the main plot device was, I just knew it was a Craven film I had never heard of, so I thought the first act was about a killer robot, and that 'BB' would become more sinister as the film progressed.Then Kristy Swanson, gets thrown down the stairs, and then we are back in full Craven mode, with a little eighties cheese thrown in.The performances are okay, Paul spends the film looking sweaty, Swanson is good, but the Darryl Hannah eye make up thing doesn't look like your decaying. And for some reason, Paul's friend just keeps fainting.The basketball scene is truly amazing, and depending on how you are feeling, you will either laugh or just groan.It's a very hard to find movie, but if you do find it, and love all things eighties, this will suit you.And it's a guarantee this will never be remade..

Dave from Ottawa This is another horror thriller that simply isn't. Thrilling that is, nor horrific for that matter. A teenage Baron Frankenstein wannabee uses dubious and unconvincing science fiction robotics to resurrect his galpal- next-door but she goes out of control. Wow, an ill-conceived machine runs amok. What a novel idea! Yawn. Well-crafted suspense or a strong moody atmosphere would at least have made this film watchable, but alas Wes craven is no Alfred Hitchcock. There is very little here to like. The performances are stiff, the drama forced, the story predictable and the inevitable violent rampage is dull and non-compelling. There isn't even the dark, moody world of a proper horror movie. Everything in the movie is too bright, shiny and suburban, which could perhaps create an ironic context but it doesn't even manage that much. This is paint-by-numbers movie-making of the worst sort.Avoid. The average episode of Buffy is much more worthy of any viewer's time.

Scarecrow-88 It sure has been a while since I last watched Wes Craven's "Deadly Friend", but I had forgotten just how much fun it was. The plot is so absurd and has murder sequences so surreal, I was completely won over. A bright teenager who can create artificially intelligent robots and understands complex matters concerning the human brain, responds to a crisis rather extraordinarily..his girlfriend is killed by her lousy, cruel, drunk of a father(..he knocks her down the stairs causing a head trauma/cerebral hemorrhage)and the kid, Paul(Matthew Laborteaux)resurrects the girl, Samantha(Kristy Swanson)by implanting his robot's computer chip intelligence in her brain! This Frankensteinian maneuver unleashes a cavalcade of problems he attempts to juggle with little success. First, Paul's friend, newspaper boy Tom(Michael Sharrett), who helped him kidnap Sam's body from the hospital, is having a hard time accepting what they had done. Second, the computer chip that Paul inserted in Sam's brain, is controlling her..this is a major setback because robot BB was starting to evolve into an entity which made it's own decisions without his master's approval, and it seems Sam is following orders directed by BB. Third, certain targets are being systematically murdered such as a paranoid neighbor who doesn't like people, Elvira Parker(Anne Ramsey; Throw Mama from the Train/The Goonies), always pointing her double-barrel shotgun at folks, who was responsible for destroying BB and Harry Pringle(Richard Marcus), the louse who sent his daughter crashing down the stairs to her demise. Fourth, Paul is having a difficult time keeping Sam stashed away, and getting her to follow instructions is not an easy task. With Tom about to crack, his mom(Anne Tworney) always close to discovering Sam, and a body count, Paul's life spirals out of control and it will only be a matter of time before the secret's out.I like how Craven creates what looks like a television movie, only for the outbursts of violence to shock the viewer into silence such as the celebrated head explosion gag by the use of a basketball(..this is followed by a body hopping about without the head as blood squirts out)..how Samantha is all of a sudden equipped with superhuman strength, allowed to lift a grown man in the air after snapping his wrist back, crushing his throat while having him extended high off the ground. Or, when Samantha lifts a biker bully, picking on Paul, over her head, hurling him into a cop car's windshield. Craven includes an amusing nightmare sequence many might consider a homage to "A Nightmare on Elm Street" where Paul finds someone slithering underneath his bed sheets, only to find the charred visage of a victim whose head had been eviscerated in an incinerator. We also spend time with Paul's cute robot before it's blown to smithereens by mean old hag Elvira, and it's established here that it's got some malevolence in it's evolving programming(..right at the start, BB nearly chokes the life out of a thief planning to lift money from Paul's mother's purse), how it could cause harm if needed. The plot itself is laughable, no doubt, and it's hard not to giggle at the ending where Paul hasn't learned his lesson, reaping unpleasantly for his interference in the process of life and death, having created a monster he will not be able to contain.