Teen genius Paul (Matthew Laborteaux) has created a robot pal B.B. and moves to town with his mother to take classes at the local university. He immediately falls for next door neighbor Samantha (Kristy Swanson). When B.B. is shot by paranoid neighbor Elvira (Anne Ramsey who played many a "grumpy old woman" in memorable eighties films like THROW MAMA FROM THE TRAIN and THE GOONIES) and Samantha ends up brain dead in the hospital thanks to her abusive father (Richard Marcus), Paul and paperboy Tom (Michael Sharrett) steal her body and Paul transplants B.B.'s robot brain into Samantha's body. The new Samantha/B.B. hybrid, however, proves not to be the girl of Paul's dreams as she starts taking out the people who did her and B.B. wrong in gruesome ways. A memorable video cover from the eighties, DEADLY FRIEND the movie proves to be a mixed bag. It is an uneasy mix of PG cuteness (the robot standing up to a group of toughs bullying Paul and Tom, playing basketball with the kids, sneaks into the shotgun-toting neighbors yard to get the basketball back, Tom's squeamishness) and R-rated gore (exploding heads, burnt corpses, and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET-esque nightmares), abusive father, and gun-happy police. Performances are mostly good although Swanson's robot is more laughable than scary and Craven's direction only comes to life in a few bits (the gore scenes and the creepy bit where Paul first discovers Sam/B.B. hatefully watching her abusive father through the garage window). Worth seeking out as a piece of eighties schlock rather than as a scary flick.