When people think Wes Craven, they often think Scream, they often think A Nightmare on Elm Street, or they often think Last House on the Left or The Hills Have Eyes. Unfortunately they don’t tend to think Deadly Friend, and that’s a huge shame as Wes Cravens Deadly Friend is a gem of a movie that is often very far down the list of Wes Craven movies that horror fans talk about. I don’t think that’s anything to do with the quality of the movie (its such a fun film) I think its more to do with Scream, Elm Street, Hills Have Eyes, and Elm Street being huge iconic movies, and Deadly Friend just didn’t quite hit the mark of those franchises (even though Scream of course came many years after Deadly Friend) 

The last time I watched Deadly Friend was on a rental VHS, and I viewed it on a 19inch Hinari Sunrise television set. I loved the film then and have often thought about the movie over the years but never caught up with again. Until now!  So for those who arent familiar with Deadly Friend, settle down and let me pitch the story to you.

Paul Conway (played by Matthew Laborteaux) is new in town.  Hes a a teenager computer genius who has built his own robot helper, BB, and who lives with his mother,  Paul falls in love with his next door neighbour Samantha (played by Kristy Swanson) who lives with her nasty abusive alcoholic Father who one night loses control, and this leaves his daughter in a coma. Unable to accept the loss, Paul turns his genius toward bringing her back, with deadly results.

Originally set up to be an adaptation of the 1985 novel ‘Friend’ by Diana Henstell which tells the story of a 13 year old boy genius who installs a computer chip in his recently dead girlfriend. The book is more scifi than horror and thats one of the many things that is fascinating about Wes Cravens Deadly Friend. 

With a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin, who would later write Jacob’s Ladder and Ghost, Deadly Friend was originally going to be a faithful adaptation of ‘Friend’ and this was the plan that Wes Craven and Bruce Joel Rubin had when working on the project, however studio bosses and test audiences had something different in mine and the film quickly found itself in a ‘put in more gore’, and ‘make it more violent’ territory which of course wasn’t the original plan, but did become the reality. Reshoots, edits, script re-writes began and the finished result in some ways does feel like many ideas blended together, but in my opinion it 100% works and is a blast of a movie!  Arrow Video have now made my week! and the film is out now for us all to see. Not only was it great to see the film in widescreen (the last time I saw it, it was pan and scan on that 19 inch TV I mentioned) but it looks great on my 65 inch TV.  As added treats this bluray set comes feature packed and I spent some of my weekend delving into these glorious extra features and learning all about Deadly Friend. 

For those horror fans out there who might not have seen everything Master Of Horror Wes Craven did, please do treat yourself to Deadly Friend, its such a fun bonkers movie that had an AI plotline way before its become commonplace to talk about AI. The film itself has to be seen for its wackiness including a great basketball sequence feature Anne Ramsey (The Goonies) and horror fans should also make it a mission to watch everything the much missed Wes Craven made.  So the film aside, what extras are we treated to in this Arrow Video release.  Well lets delve into them. 

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
• Original lossless mono audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Brand new audio commentary by film critics Stacie Ponder and Alexandra West (the commentary is great. I’m not normally a huge fan of chat tracks by people who weren’t involved in the film, however Stacie and Alex really know their stuff about Deadly Friend and make this commentary a definite must- they love this movie and that comes across in their conversation which was recorded in 2024. You’ll learn tons about the film as you overhear them sharing their stories about this movie) 

Now its onto the featurettes and we get a few here. 
• Hey Sam, Nice Shot, an archival interview with actress Kristy Swanson ( 9 minutes)
• Written in Blood, an archival interview with screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (8 minutes)
• Samantha’s Symphony, an archival interview with composer Charles Bernstein (8 minutes)
• Robots, Ramsey, and Revenge, an archival interview with special make-up effects artist Lance Anderson (5 minutes)
• The Tragedy of Samantha Pringle, a brand new visual essay by film critic BJ Colangelo (12 minutes)
• March of the Pigs, a brand new visual essay by film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (14 minutes)

So that’s just under an hour (56 minutes to be a bit more exact) of featurettes that we get on the disc which is great when you add it to the 90 minute audio commentary.  You’ll know far more about this Wes Craven gem after watching all these than before you did, that’s for sure!  

You also get the trailers and TV spots and an image gallery included on the disc and for those who love packaging extras, this set comes with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Robert Hack and a great illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by author and critic Guy Adams

So to summarise. Deadly Friend is a gem of an 80s movie from one of the Masters of Horror and has been overlooked since its release due to the massive franchises that its director helmed but Deadly Friend is a film that deserves to be seen and thankfully due to this lovely new Arrow Video release, it will be seen by this modern generation and revisited by people like me who haven’t seen this for years! It comes packed with enough extra features to teach you all you need to know about this film, but not enough that you wont ever get through all the features. Its a perfect release for a cult classic!  Great work Arrow!