Review of Deadly Friend (1986) by Allan C — 19 Aug 2017

Campy low point for writer/director Wes Craven with this teenage version of Frankenstein. I do respect Craven, but when a teenage boy genius decides to resurrect his neighborhood friend, Kristy Swanson, after she's killed by her abusive father using his knowledge of robotics, the film is amazingly silly.

I'm really not sure how a decapitation scene by a roughly thrown basketball can be taken seriously. The casting of Anne Ramsey in a pre-Throw Momma From the Train role makes me wonder if this was intentionally campy, but I'm still not so sure.

Craven later found a perfect balance of horror, camp, and black humor with "The People Under the Stairs," but if that was the intent here, it didn't quite come off. Still, I was never bored watching this film and was certainly entertained, which is more than can be said for most horror films.