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Deadly Friend

"Deadly Friend" Intro

"Okay, we've got a Wes Craven flick tonight! "Deadly Friend." Every bit as disgusting as "Nightmare on Elm Street," but not quite as scary. It's basically a "Breakfast Club" version of "Bride of Frankenstein," with this kid who comes to town haulin an artificial-brain robot named Bee Bee. Then when the girl next door gets bashed down the stairs by her slimehead father, the kid sticks the robot brain in the girl, steals her body, and tries to get his new girlfriend-monster to stop killin all the neighbors and grabbin biker gangs between the legs. That's basically your plot, and I'm not givin much away, cause you learn all that right at the beginning. But let's look at those drive-in totals:

Six dead bodies.
Seven gallons blood, some spurting, with three bloody noses.
Exploding head.
Head disguised as a basketball.
Exploding robot.
Father charbroiling.
Gratuitous brain surgery.
Incest Fu.

Three stars. Check it out--this is pretty decent for a robot flick--Wes does it again.

[fading] Kristy Swanson as the babe girlfriend. We can all thank God for Kristy. I would like to thank Kristy myself, in the Biblical sense."

"Deadly Friend" Commercial Break #1

"You know what I hate? When they have a robot and they try to make it CUTE. It's like a nerd joke. Makes you feel like you're at a Star Trek convention talkin to a girl with braces on her teeth, saying "Hey! Cool space helmet!" You know? Yuk."

"Deadly Friend" Commercial Break #2

"Remember in the eighties, almost every movie had a sadistic father like that? Fathers were MEAN. Incest, abuse, just all round nastiness. Every father in a horror movie was some version of Bruce Dern. Anyhoo, that's my sociological observation for the night, and now here we go--time for a little elective brain surgery on Miss Kristy Swanson. Too bad we can't show you the closeups."

"Deadly Friend" Commercial Break #3

"Well, you know, those wacky high school kids. So they're a little rambunctious. They go to the high school, kidnap the brain-dead girlfriend and hook her up to a robot--can you blame em? It keeps em off the streets, right?"

"Deadly Friend" Commercial Break #4

"Robot girlfriend on the loose. I've heard of a controlling relationship, but this is ridiculous. Why do I think that the robotic Kristy Swanson is NOT going out for a Slurpee?"

"Deadly Friend" Commercial Break #5

"Well, we didn't get the full of effect of the splattered head. Kristy Swanson knocks the old bat's head off with that basketball, and she goes twitchin around the room like a constipated chicken. But there's only so much you can show on TNT, otherwise members of Congress call up and say they we're causin copycat crimes in Florida--you know, like there's all these robotic serial killers out there choppin people's heads off with basketballs. If it's in a movie, SOMEBODY will try it. That's the theory anyhow. That's why we couldn't show you that excellent exploding head. I am ashamed and abashed, and I apologize.

[fading] Did that sound sincere to you? I didn't ask if it WAS sincere, I asked if it sounded sincere. It's a Bill Clinton thing."

"Deadly Friend" Commercial Break #6

"Those robot girlfriends, they can go psycho on you in a flash, can't they? This movie is actually a little lamer than I remember it. It came out in 1986, and I thought it was pretty decent at the time, but it's basically just one long premise, isn't it? It just doesn't go anywhere. I don't why I would be saying this after you've already watched about 90 per cent of it, but check out this ending. There's, like, nowhere they could go. I don't know, tell me what you think. And after this, remember, we have the great "Midnight Offerings," duelling high school witches, which I consider a little stronger than this picture.

[fading] Do you notice that, no matter how DEAD Kristy Swanson is, here makeup is still perfect? I mean, sure, they put a little black stuff around her eyes, but basically she's Miss Maybelling in these scenes. Shouldn't she get all gooey and zombie-lookin, just for realism? That's my opinion anyhow."

"Deadly Friend" Outro

"Okey dokey, so much for the ole robot girlfriend idea. She's NOT gonna do what you say, even if she IS a robot. One of these days, she's gonna want a Camaro, and there's nothin you an do about it. "Deadly Friend," one of the less successful flicks by the great horror director Wes Craven.

Okay, I wanna remind you that next week we have back-to-back Adrienne Barbeau in "The Fog" and "Swamp Thing," so don't miss that.

And that's it for me, Joe Bob Briggs, reminding you that when dreams turn to dust . . . vacuum.

Did you guys hear the one where Sherlock Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip? They'd gone to bed and were lying there looking up at the sky. Holmes says, "Watson, look up. What do you see?" And Watson says, "Well, I see thousands of stars." "And what does that mean to you?" Holmes asks him. And Watson says, "Well, I suppose it means that of all the planets and suns and moons in the universe, that we are truly the one most blessed with the reason to deduce theorems to make our way in this world of criminal enterprises and blind greed. It means that we are truly small in the eyes of God but struggle each day to be worthy of the senses and spirit we have been blessed with. And, I suppose, at the very least, in the meteorological sense, it means that it is most likely that we will have another nice day tomorrow. What does it mean to you, Holmes?" And Sherlock Holmes says, "To me, it means someone has stolen our tent."

Joe Bob Briggs, reminding you that the drive-in will never die."

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