Just saw again recently, Deadly Friend (1986) which was Kristy Swanson's first staring role along with Matthew Laborteaux, Michael Sharrett, Anne Twomey, Richard Marcus and the late great, Anne Ramsey. I had forgotten about this lost little gem of a film done by Wes Craven back in 1986 during the 80's Horror craze. I had only saw it once before, but censored for Television, so I watched the film in all of its uncensored glory.
After seeing it, I had completely forgotten how the film went so I was watching it again like it was my first time ever seeing it. I remembered now how much of great performance Kristy Swanson gave as the girl next door and abuse victim, Sam who become friends with Matthew Laborteaux's character for a short time until her abusive Father kills her knocking her down a flight of stairs only to be re-animated by Laborteaux using the computer chip brain of his destroyed robot BB who was destroyed by Anne Ramsey's character with a shot gun. I even noticed of couple new added scenes to the film like more blood flying in a dream scene Sam was having about murdering her Father with a broken vase and seeing more gore after Matthew Laborteaux's character, Paul finds Sam after she did kill her Father and seeing the bloody aftermath. Also a more longer shot after Anne Ramsey's character death when her head was destroyed by Sam with Paul's basketball. I did some reading about the film on Wikipedia to find out that Wes Craven was planning on making the film a PG Sci-Fi Thriller Love Story which was more based on the novel "Friend" by Diana Henstell. Only to have it changed into a 91 minute Horror movie after Warner Brothers test screened it for an audience and people complained it wasn't a typical Wes Craven Horror film, so Wes was forced to edit the film of it's Love Story and make it more a Horror film with death scenes were made more graphic and a new ending was added that was not thought up by Wes Craven, but by the head of Warner Brothers at the time. To this day, Wes Craven denounces the film ,but Actress, Kristy Swanson praises it as it was her first taste of being a lead star of a film, not to mention she learned a lot from making that film. There is a fan run online petition that die hard fans of the film who heard about Wes Craven's Original version of the film and are trying hard to get a "Director's Cut" of the film released.