FILM · 1986
Deadly Friend
40 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (40)
- #001
Director Wes Craven and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin's original vision for the film was a PG-rated supernatural science fiction thriller, focused primarily on the terrifying love story between Paul and Samantha and secondarily on the adults around them, who were the real monsters. Craven shot this version and decided to show it to a test audience made up largely of his fans. The fans' reaction was negative, criticizing the lack of the violence and gore seen in Craven's earlier films. The studio eventually recognized Craven's popularity as a horror director. Warner Bros. president Mark Canton asked Rubin to write six more bloody scenes for his script, each bloodier than the last. Rubin worked hard with Craven to create a very deep and heartfelt film. Unfortunately, the added bloody scenes, reshoots and post-production re-editing changed the original story substantially. Craven and Rubin voiced their furious anger at the studio and disowned the film.
- #002
Kristy Swanson said she threw the basketball probably more than a hundred times during the reshoots of Elvira's death scene: "Wes Craven pushed me to throw it as hard as I could to show a lot of speed. I must have thrown that ball hundreds of times. My arm definitely felt it." In a May 2000 interview with Maxim, Swanson also said the fake head was filled with real cow brains that the crew got from a butcher.
- #003
Building the robot B. B. cost more than $20,000. Wes Craven used a company called Robotics 21. Its eyes were made from two camera lenses from the 1950s, a garage remote control unit and a radio antenna taken from a Corvette. B. B. could actually lift 750 pounds.
- #004
Wes Craven was not very taken with the story of 'Deadly Friend' because Samantha, once resurrected as an undead monster, goes on a killing spree. Craven was more interested in exploring the adults around her, who all resembled monsters in human skin. In his own words: "The fears come not from her but from ordinary people, who are actually much more frightening; a father who beats his child is a terrifying figure. He's the only one you're afraid of in the film… The idea is that adults can be horrible without stepping outside what society says is acceptable."
- #005
Although it was a critical and financial failure at the time of its release, 'Deadly Friend' became a cult film over the years and gained a fan base.
- #006
Probably the most confusing and hated scene since the film's release is the final scene, in which Samantha turns into a robot and kills Paul. Considered a very bad idea for the ending by those involved in the shoot, it was included as an absurd last-minute idea by Mark Canton, who was running the studio at the time. In a 1990 interview with Fangoria, screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin commented on the forced ending: "The robot coming out of the girl's head belongs only to Mark Canton, and you can't tell the president of Warner Bros. that his idea is terrible!" Rubin also said that although Canton was the one who devised it, people still blame him for the ending in which Samantha turns into a robot, at least at that time. He also stated that he still loved working with Craven even though the studio ruined the love story he and Craven enjoyed, confirming that he was not the one who wanted to change the film and should not be blamed for what happened to it. Rubin even said the production was one of the happiest experiences he had ever had.
- #007
Kristy Swanson was 16 during the shoot, and 'Deadly Friend' was her first feature film. She found it very difficult to play a living teenager resurrected as a zombie with a robotic brain. Today Swanson is proud of her work in the film.
- #008
The film the neighbor, the elderly Elvira, watches is The Bad Seed (1956), about a murderous little girl.
- #009
The voice of the robot B. B. was provided by Charles Fleischer, who had appeared in Wes Craven's previous film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and would later voice Roger Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).
- #010
While shooting the film and dealing with the studio's forced reshoots, Wes Craven was going through a complicated divorce from his ex-wife Mimi and even faced a $30 million lawsuit in court from a person who claimed not only to have written the book for A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) but that Craven had stolen the story. On top of everything, he was removed from two major projects: Beetlejuice (1988) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), both also distributed by Warner Bros.
- #011
Wes Craven once explained why the studio demanded reshoots and more sensational death scenes: "We started to make a film that Warner Bros. said they wanted to make, a terrifying love story with a different direction. About five weeks into shooting they realized who I was and told me not to be influenced by what they had said in the past… So in the last weeks of shooting I prepared a small nightmare scene and put it in the film. After the screening was a big success, they came to me and said: 'Listen, what we need is more stuff. What we're doing is contributing to a few deaths, an opening jump, a new closing scene and two nightmares — that kind of Wes Craven touch.'" After negative reactions from preview audiences who saw the film's first cut and wanted a much more chilling film, the film was re-edited and more horrific deaths and all the other reshot scenes were included, but these scenes only made the film look like a mixture of two different genres: a family-friendly film and a straight horror film. While the new scenes were being added, those who liked more scenes between Paul and Samantha that would have made the film more of a love story saw them cut for pace and length, since it was decided the film would be released as a fast-paced horror film.
- #012
In a 1996 interview, Kristy Swanson said of 'Deadly Friend': "It was my first lead in a feature film. I was 16. I was totally committed to it. I wanted to do the best work I could. I was having the best time of my life. As for the film itself, some people love it, some people hate it. That's how it is. I really enjoyed making 'Deadly Friend'. At that point in my life, it was wonderful."
- #013
Promotional photos, lobby cards and many other images show some of the deleted scenes, all of which reveal more character, plot and especially more scenes between Paul and Samantha: Paul and Sam having a picnic with BB in Paul's yard. Paul and Sam sitting on a bench kissing while Sam holds a stuffed animal that may be a gift from Paul. Paul and Sam, in Halloween costumes, talking and/or arguing with Carl, the leader of the biker punk gang that earlier bullied Paul, Tom and BB. Paul talking with his mother Jeannie in his room after learning that Sam's life support will be disconnected. Paul sitting beside Sam and holding her hand in the hospital when a nurse comes and tells him he has to leave. Paul kneeling beside Sam in the hospital right after her life support is disconnected. Elvira's original death scene, in which Sam sneaks up behind her and slams her into the front door of her house. This original death scene is also shown in the theatrical trailer. An extended version of the scene in which Paul talks with Sam after showing her the photo of the two of them with BB. Paul and Sam sitting together in the attic. Paul and his mother in their living room with the resurrected Samantha. This is part of a plot different from the film's original version. The back cover of the film's Twisted Terror DVD edition shows an image from this deleted scene. The back cover of the Twisted Terror DVD edition of Deadly Friend also features a ghostly image of Samantha in a white dress. This is one of several photos showing the original ending in which she is killed at the end of the film. Paul dreams that Samantha says goodbye to him in her room. Other photos of this original ending exist but are very rare, though one can be seen on Kristy Swanson's website. Many more scenes were cut from the original cut during post-production reshoots and re-editing; some of them because the film became a completely different film after the forced reshoots, and others because of the studio's demand to shorten the running time for a more profitable theatrical release, since films of 90 minutes or less get more screenings. For this reason there are some jumps and uneven editing in the final version, especially in the first half of the film.
- #014
Professional mime artist Richmond Shepard taught Kristy Swanson all of her character's robotic movements in the film. In an interview, Swanson said of learning this particular way of walking: "At first it was hard to do these movements. You don't think walking this way is difficult until you actually try it. But Richmond was a good teacher and I picked up most of the movements quite quickly."
- #015
In an interview with Starlog, Matthew Labyorteaux said Wes Craven did not want to turn 'Deadly Friend' into a horror film: "Wes said the only thing he didn't want to do was make it a horror film, because it was one of his first big-budget films and it wasn't from New Line Cinema or Joe Blow Pictures. That gave me a bit of a sense of security, knowing he wanted to make a beautiful film."
- #016
In an interview with Fangoria, Kristy Swanson said that she and the other actors found themselves caught up in the studio's attempts to push Wes Craven into making the film more visceral than originally intended. Changes were being made to the script during both production and reshoots, title changes were being discussed (the project was called 'Friend' when Craven started, then changed to 'Artificial Intelligence' and then 'A. I.' before the producers and studio finally settled on 'Deadly Friend'), and there were many arguments about how violent and bloody the final film would be. All these problems also caused some issues for the actors.
- #017
Warner Bros.' theatrical trailer for the film presented it as a straight horror film, without a single frame of the robot B. B. anywhere. The mix of youth and terror seen in the trailer implied that 'Deadly Friend' would be largely derivative of Wes Craven's previous film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
- #018
Although the film contains much of Wes Craven's signature iconography, including nightmare scenes, Craven himself had not actually wanted to shoot them. During the reshoots the producers told him to include several of them. As Craven said, "They were mine, but they came too late. After the film was shot, the producers said, 'Let's put in dream scenes.'".
- #019
The film's suburban setting echoed Wes Craven's previous film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and was a deliberate choice by Craven.
- #020
When the new ending, in which Samantha turns into a robot and attacks Paul, was shot for the film, an extra actor was hired for the scene and trained for three weeks, but she panicked upon realizing she would need oxygen from two different masks in order to breathe. Production coordinator Nancy E. Barr was then asked to do the scene in full makeup; she complied.
- #021
Another film written by Bruce Joel Rubin, Jacob's Ladder (1990), suffered problems similar to Deadly Friend with its script and negative test screenings. Rubin's original script for Jacob's Ladder was rewritten before shooting, and roughly 20 minutes of horror scenes were cut from the film's original cut because preview audiences found them too disturbing.
- #022
Deadly Friend was released in theaters in October because Warner Bros. hoped the Halloween crowds would boost its box office performance. It bombed.
- #023
Kristy Swanson did not actually throw the basketball at Anne Ramsey's prosthetic head while filming the famous head-explosion scene. Samantha throws the ball during a shot, but when the ball strikes Elvira's head, the ball in that shot was actually thrown by the special effects team. This was done for insurance and safety reasons, as they did not want to risk damaging expensive equipment on the set. Director Wes Craven actually wanted to throw the ball himself, but the effects team had to do it instead.
- #024
In an interview, writer Bruce Joel Rubin told how the $36,000 he was paid to write the script for Deadly Friend saved him from bankruptcy during the four-month Writers Guild strike, and also helped him prepare his son's Bar Mitzvah and buy a house. In the same interview, Rubin said he initially did not want to write the script, but after changing his mind he called producer Robert M. Sherman and took the job. He also said working on the film was one of the most extraordinary experiences of his life: "It was a horror film with a lot of elements I didn't want on my résumé. It didn't do very well, but it was completely fun. My kids were on the set every night. My five-year-old Ari was totally in love with the star, Kristy Swanson. She later became Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the film. She was really sweet to him and even took him to a movie. Date."
- #025
The film was heavily censored by the MPAA and was ultimately submitted 13 times before it received an R rating. Samantha's nightmare about killing her father, the scene of Samantha's father's death, the aftermath of that death scene, and Elvira's death scene were all cut. An uncut version was restored for the DVD release in the Twisted Terror Collection released by Warner Bros. on September 5, 2007.
- #026
In a 2006 interview, Wes Craven discussed one of several problems he had with the MPAA over one of Deadly Friend's reshot gory scenes, the basketball head-kill: "In Deadly Friend there was a scene where a nasty old lady's head gets hit with a basketball. The original scene as it was cut was amazing; for ten, fifteen seconds she ran around the room like a chicken with its head cut off. It was bizarre and amazing, and they cut all of it. So I compiled all the films I knew that had decapitations with an R rating, which we called the 'Decapitation Reel,' and sent it to them. They sent it right back, saying they were just going by what they felt in the room at the time, and we had about 8 or 10 films in there, like The Omen (1976), where a man's head is cut off by a sheet of glass, and that didn't matter to them."
- #027
The film's original cut did not include the bloody dream scenes, the famous basketball head-decapitation scene, the opening horror scene in which a thief tries to steal Jeannie's minivan, or the ending in which Samantha turns into a robot and kills Paul. All of these scenes were added because of demands to rewrite the script and the reshoots forced by Warner Bros. executives and producers.
- #028
Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin wrote two more films with afterlife themes: Ghost (1990) and Jacob's Ladder (1990). Unlike Deadly Friend, both films were critical and financial successes.
- #029
Critics, audiences and horror fans praised the film's script, plot and cast, while most of the bad reviews focused on the scenes added or changed at the request of Warner Bros. and the producers. These include all the gore and dream scenes, as well as Sam's revised autopsy "transformation" in the ending.
- #030
Body count: 4 (even though Sam dies twice).
- #031
According to the book Wes Craven: The Art of Horror, Wes Craven's original cut of the film "was a youth film full of charm, intelligence and solid performances by the appealing young leads Kristy Swanson and Matthew Labyorteaux. It was definitely a mainstream PG film, but it emphasized that Craven could direct something other than double-barreled horror."
- #032
Wes Craven had a hand in choosing Bruce Joel Rubin to write the script for Deadly Friend. Rubin agreed that the film should have a softer tone than Craven's other films. Craven could not write the script himself because he was busy directing episodes of The Twilight Zone (1985) at the time. Craven and producer Robert M. Sherman hired Rubin as screenwriter after reading and being impressed by the (then) unproduced script for Jacob's Ladder (1990).
- #033
In an earlier rough cut of the film, Elvira's death was filmed to be less bloody than in the final cut. Instead of Sam smashing her head with a basketball, Sam breaks Elvira through the front door, leaving the upper half of her body outside the door and the lower half still inside. In the scene where Elvira's body is carried away on a stretcher, the large hole in her door was still visible. According to Dr. Johanson, the sound of her head being smashed is heard all over the room, which probably means it was added later when the scene was changed.
- #034
Editor Michael Eliot also re-edited the original, longer cuts of two other Warner Bros. films, Out for Justice (1991) and Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), after re-editing the original version of Deadly Friend.
- #035
Just like Deadly Friend, another Warner Bros. cult action film from the same year, Cobra (1986), fell victim to the studio's forced cuts and re-edits. Just as with Deadly Friend, Warner Bros. demanded major changes to the film, including reducing the total running time from two hours to 84 minutes, removing most of the plot and character scenes, and greatly reducing the action scenes, blood and violence.
- #036
It was adapted from Diane Henstell's novel Friend. The novel was later reissued under the title Deadly Friend to match the film.
- #037
Based on Variety's archive site and Joseph Maddery's 2014 article about the film in Deadly Magazine, principal photography on Deadly Friend began on January 6, 1986 in California and ended in February. This does not count the later reshoots.
- #038
In some countries, the film's title for TV broadcast was changed to "BB," which is in fact the initials and name of the deadly robot.
- #039
One of the many original titles this film had during development was Artificial Intelligence, later shortened to A.I., until the studio settled on Deadly Friend. Years later, a film combining both original films would be released: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). Both films were produced by Warner Bros.
- #040
The restaurant shown at the beginning of the film is called Burger Heaven.
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