Deadly Friend (1986)

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Boom!

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.

Manborg (2011)

With movies like Kung Fury, Turbo Kid, Wolf Cop, video games like Far Cry 3: Dragon Blood, and (most recently, as of writing) the Netflix series Stranger Things, there seems to be a revival of sorts for 80s nostalgia lately. I cannot tell you how much I love it. Especially when it's done right.

While Manborg gets a few things right, by absolutely nailing the tone, it misses the mark a bit with a story that's fueled by cliche and cultural references.

Good stuff!

But it can be overwhelming without the story to compensate.

The movie opens with a scene between two brothers in what is essentially Alternative World War Something (against the Machines). One brother is killed by the big bad guy. The other is saved and turned into Manborg. You might find some similarities between Manborg and the Mandroid (as seen in Eliminators)...that wasn't unintentional.

The references to other 80s source material don't stop there. The film includes a plethora of other wink-wink nods...like the martial artist "Number One Man" (a reference to Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter), stealing the basic story-line from Mega Man, and the anime-like knife throw seen above.

And that's the problem.

While it's interesting to toss retro-references at your audience at the approximate rate of six-per-scene, the story still has to be interesting enough to hold their attention. If this movie had, perhaps, avoided going (close to) full feature-length (like Kung Fury did, to great benefit), it might not have collapsed under its own weight.

There's some decent stop-motion, at least. Don't see enough of that these days.

Recommended only if watching with people who fondly remember this stuff and can jump in with commentary when you all get bored.

Neon Maniacs (1986)

"When the world is ruled by violence,

And the soul of mankind fades,

the children's path shall be darkened

by the shadows of the Neon Maniacs."

Does that intro voice-over make any sense to you? Good, then it sets up this movie perfectly.

The first few moments establish that there are killers living under the San Francisco Bridge that murder. Oh, they also have trading cards for some reason...

Don't worry, these are never explained nor seen again after this point in the movie.

Each member of this group of murdering killers has his own theme/preferred murdering method. It's kind of like someone said, "That Village People thing was pretty cool. Let's mix that with a bunch of deadly killing murderers who all dress in costume. But they're not 'People' so we'll call them 'Maniacs.' And everyone is going wild about neon because it's 1986, so we'll toss that word in too."

Neon blood, because...well, the word is in the title so...

So, after their random killing of the fisherman (to establish that they are, in fact, murdering killers) the Neon Maniacs venture out to do some good old-fashioned murdering of teenagers. Unfortunately, one of their would-be victims doesn't get murder-killed. She gives a statement to the police and then goes back to high school, where no one believes her story.

EXCEPT...for one plucky, young pseudo-Punky Brewster type who is really into horror films.

So plucky, her hat couldn't possibly stay on straight.

Plucky Brewster decides to investigate on her own and (accidentally) discovers that the monsters have a weakness. As she's doing some digging, one of them trips into a water puddle right in front of her. That's right, these creatures have their own garlic/silver bullet. And it is...WATER!

Yes. These scary slashing-hackers disintegrate when they come into contact with the most common substance on earth. You could literally defeat them with a spray bottle.

Or a water gun...

...water bucket...

...shower combo.

It's clear that this movie doesn't care about logic. It's got a central conceit that no one thought through (i.e. Does the fog they're walking through also harm these monsters?). The film pours everything into the idea of 12 themed killers, but dries up otherwise. There's no gory deaths to wash over the viewer, and barely more than a spritzing of story. Recommended only for 80s horror buffs.