Deadly Friend is a film directed by Wes Craven and was a follow-up to his iconic Nightmare on Elm Street movie. It's a terrible movie about a young robotics genius who brings his murdered neighbor back to life using his cybernetic skills. She then goes on a murderous revenge spree. I'm going to spoil the whole thing, so you don't have to bother watching it.
(If you do plan to watch - against my advice - then you probably want to stop reading here.)
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| Don't say you weren't warned. |
The movie starts with a single mother moving her son, and her son's robot, to suburbia. The son is basically a young version of the guy from Gremlins.
And the robot exhibits that kid's genius ability to create semi-murderous machines that talk like the Buck Rogers robot (Twiki) mashed-up with Donald Duck's voice.
Once settled in suburbia, the robotics expert kid meets the locals. One is a regular-looking version of Clint Howard who delivers papers around the neighborhood. The other, Kristy Swanson, is abused by her father. When her father's abuse kills her, the robotics expert decides to bring her back to life by implanting one of his circuit boards in her head. Of course, she immediately goes for revenge while the robot-genius kid attempts to hide her existence and keep her killing under control.
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| The title tells you how well that plan works out. |
There are exactly three decent moments in this movie. The last one is pretty spectacular, but the first is when Kristy Swanson kills her abusive father. It's a moment that falls flat when it should have soared (I mean, who doesn't love watching that kind of an asshole get his comeuppance). Instead of a sweet death scene though, we get this.
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| Pffft. |
The second worthwhile moment of this movie is the inexplicable (surprise?) ending. After Kristy Swanson has been killed a second time to end her revenge spree, the body is taken to the morgue. Like the idiot-genius he is, the robotics kid decides he can still help her (despite the fact that his previous "help" caused her to go all murdery) and aims to revive her again. That's when this happens.
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| So, the chip in her head caused her to internally robotify? |
And finally, I've saved the best moment for last. This one is a gem, but needs a little set-up. As per usual in suburbia, there's one nasty neighbor who doesn't want the kids anywhere near her house. In this case, it's Mama Fratelli from The Goonies. At one point in the movie, the kids lose their basketball over Mama's fence. She scoops the ball up and keeps it. Later, Kristy Swanson decides this is appropriate retaliation for that slight.
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| Boom! |
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| And then her headless body tries to walk it off. |
As I mentioned from the start, I've spoiled the three best moments of this film because it's not recommendable. Unless you're a huge Wes Craven fan, I guess? Otherwise, avoid this movie.
