6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Paul is a new kid in town with a robot named "BB". He befriends Samantha and the three of them have a lot of good times together. That is, until Samantha's abusive father throws her down some stairs and kills her. In an effort to save her life, Paul implants BB's computer brain into Samantha's human brain.
Starring: Kristy Swanson, Anne Ramsey, Michael Sharrett, Anne Twomey, Richard MarcusHorror | 100% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
1687 kbps
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
When he decided to direct Deadly Friend (1986), Wes Craven was seeking to expand his oeuvre with a sci-fi drama about an artificial intelligence robot and his creator, a teenage polymath. Writer Bruce Joel Rubin had previously penned the treatment to Brainstorm (1983) but Deadly Friend (or Friend, as he titled it after Diana Henstell's 1985 novel, which he adopted) was his maiden feature-length screenplay. Thirties-something single mom Jeannie Conway (Anne Twomey) and her 15-year-old son, Paul Conway (Matthew Laborteaux), are moving into a suburban home in the West coast town of Welling. Paul is a prodigy who's already enrolled at nearby Western Polytechnic (probably a fictional stand-in for California Polytechnic State University). Paul spent three years building a robot named BB (aka Be Be), which reminds me of a cross between the titular Short Circuit (1986) and Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons. Paul is an understudy to Dr. Johanson (Russ Marin) at the college. The professor has been teaching Paul how to operate on the brain. Paul becomes fast friends with the neighborhood newspaper boy, Tom (Michael Sharrett). He develops an instant crush on Samantha (Kristy Swanson), the cute blonde next door. Paul notices the bruises on Sam's wrist and she initially tries to evade that they were caused by her abusive father, Harry Pringle (Richard Marcus). (Sam's dad wears clothes with crimson and forest green on them, which are similar to the colors on Freddy's sweater.) Besides Sam's dad, Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey) is the other adult villain in the neighborhood. (The teen bad guys are the gang of biker boys led by Carl, who picks on Paul, Tom, and Sam.) Elvira is the curmudgeonly old lady across the way who's overprotective of her gated home. She owns a double-barrelled shotgun and isn't afraid to take it out to chase trespassers away or use it for real. Pivotal things happen to BB and Sam that compel Paul to apply his scientific ingenuity.
BB and Paul arrive at their new abode.
Scream Factory has brought Deadly Friend to Blu-ray for the first time this month with a "new HD 2K scan of the film from the interpositive." The film appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 31.30 GB). The image looks clean and sharp during the main titles and mostly thereafter. There's small pockets of dirt and minor speckling but those instances are infrequent. Interior scenes in the Twomey and Parker households, as well as in the sheriff's office, display brown and muddy furnishings. (See Screenshot #s 8-10.) Frame grab #19 is seen through the point-of-view of the robot, who has vision Rubin describes in the script I read as "an electronic heat-sensing device" with "undulating colors." Scream has encoded the movie at a mean video bitrate of 34000 kbps.
The 90-minute feature comes with a dozen scene selections.
Scream has delivered a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1687 kbps, 24-bit) as the sole sound track. The mix is clean and free of any audible blemishes. Spoken words are clear and easy to discern. Composer Charles Bernstein fuses both electronic and orchestral layers as exemplified over the main titles. He also wrote a melodic theme for Paul and Samantha that's lovely to listen to on the 2007 Perseverance Records album.
Scream supplies optional English SDH for the feature.
Deadly Friend was a departure in several ways for Wes Craven, who was essentially working on his first studio picture. He benefited from a solid script from Bruce Joel Rubin. I've read a revised, later draft of Rubin's screenplay and it develops Paul and Samantha's relationship and their family lives more. Rubin is a very good writer and I wish Warner had filmed all of the scenes he wrote. (Perhaps Craven and his crew did but the Scream Factory disc doesn't have any deleted scenes.) I'm glad that Scream has finally given Deadly Friend a Blu-ray release, which sports a fine transfer and a good (though short) assemblage of recent interviews. I hope that Scream/Shout! Factory undertakes a new restoration of Deadly Blessing (1981). A PRETTY SOLID RECOMMENDATION for this Collector's Edition.
1990
2016
Mutant / Roger Corman's Cult Classics
1982
Warner Archive Collection
1957
1991
1986
1964
1989
1986
The Rats / Scream Factory
1982
1975
Space Vampires / Space Zombies
1968
Monsters from the Moon
1953
1966
Space Mission to the Lost Planet / Vampire Men of the Lost Planet
1970
1964
1959
1939
1941
1957