Deadly Friend

Remains a mesmerizing time-capsule portrait of ’80s-era hopes and fears about computers. Read full review

Deadly Friend is stylish and sardonic enough to offer horror fans some knowing laughs and a pleasant relief from shrieking. Read full review

Pic has enough gore, suspense and requisite number of shocks to keep most hearts pounding through to the closing credits. Read full review

Although the prevailing tone is comic, there is plenty of grue and gore; the heart stops several times. This may be Craven at his crummiest, but the resulting sick still ranks higher than anything his imitators can come up with. Read full review

The movie also deserves a watch because of the incoherent style. It’s like getting to see two films for one. If you’re in the mood to see a lighthearted movie about childhood and becoming an adult, it’s got you covered. And if you want a gory slasher film with plenty of dark humor, it has you covered there as well. Read full review

Craven remains a savvy storyteller -- and he still jolts us with a couple of hideous frights -- but this new film lacks the skin-crawling intensity of past Craven efforts. [14 Oct 1986]

On the whole, Deadly Friend is a routine horror movie, poorly photographed (by old-time cinematographer Philip Lathrop) and poorly performed (with the exception of New York stage actress Anne Twomey, as Paul's mother). Read full review

The movie turns into a rather-dull mad-scientist romp. Craven's direction is nothing more than workmanlike, and it appears that out of sheer boredom he threw two nightmare sequences into the mix. Read full review

Deadly Friend hasn’t aged well. In fact, it’s quite crappy. Read full review

Craven has proven himself a talented director of horror films on several occasions, from Last House on the Left to A Nightmare on Elm Street. But this time he's chosen a project that plays not at all to his abilities, which lie with the creation of isolated, disturbing images rather than with the careful sustaining of suspense through story-telling. [13 Oct 1986, p.5C]

Craven packs routine teen-confrontation material into the plot as filler, and still has trouble getting to 90 minutes. His ending is contrived and nonsensical even by the standards of the form. [14 Oct 1986, p.B7]