cult film freak: KRISTY SWANSON IN WES CRAVEN'S 'DEADLY FRIEND'

Long Gone are the days of this particular Photobucket frame... But here's a writeup of DEADLY FRIEND that came out in 1986

DEADLY FRIEND is like two movies in one, and both are completely entertaining. Directed by Wes Craven after NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET bombed in theaters and then became a sleeper hit on video...

Craven's FRIEND involves a brainy teenager, Paul Conway, played by Matthew Labyorteaux, famous as the street urchin turned bad luck charm Albert Ingalls on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE.

Matthew Labyorteaux as Paul Conway

Paul has a robot named B.B, a clunky, voice-boxed android that rolls around via remote control. The human creator, too smart for school, gives student lectures on how robots (his in particular) are getting closer to becoming human-like. A contentedly lonesome Paul lives with a single mother and befriends two neighbors: a quirky male underdog and most importantly, the blond-haired girl next door.

Enter Kristy Swanson’s Samantha Pringle, a diamond in the rough of obscure teenage beauties. What’s impressive is how the usually drop dead gorgeous Swanson is made to look like a somewhat plain-looking tomboy… but not for very long.

Kristy Swanson as Samantha Pringle

It’s during the second act, when Samantha’s rendered brain-dead by her abusive father, that two important things occur: Paul goes from an underdog geek into a brand new form of young Mad Scientist, wanting to revive his dead friend at all costs while Samantha, after being implanted with the same computer chip that had made the robot exist, becomes a unique, memorable vixen.

A streak of blue raccoon makeup under her eyes, Samantha resembles a suburban version of Daryl Hannah’s Pris from BLADE RUNNER. With reptilian neck-jerks and shock-wide eyes, she turns tables on everyone that’d made her normal life bad: including her father; a local bully; and the neighborhood grump Anne Ramsey – one scene involving a basketball decapitation is topnotch exploitation fare.

Kristy Swanson is a DEADLY FRIEND and damn killer too

Iconic auteur Wes Craven builds suspense nicely, particularly during scenes bridging the sporadic violence – when Paul and his friend kidnap Samantha’s body, it feels like a nail-biting heist film. And his attempts to keep the newly restored Samantha a secret from his mother, the neighbors, and the police are intense and even humorous...

As Samantha roams the neighborhood alone, bent on methodical destruction, her deadliness is just too fun, especially because her victims really deserve it: making her both a vicious antagonist and a vulnerable, childlike heroine who really deserved a sequel!