Friends are a good thing to have. They share good times with us, make us laugh, and kill those who have wronged us(?!) Well that’s just what goes down in this lesser-known Wes Craven film. It’s based on the novel, Friend by Diana Henstell. I was deciding on a robot themed film to review for B-Movie Meatloaf (a collaborative project on this site) and discovered this fun, quirky flick from the 80s. Put aside Freddy Krueger and the ghost-face slasher for a moment and get to know "BB". He’s made from titanium and electric circuit boards, and quite capable of murder.

Paul Conway is a young man with a brilliant mind. He moves into town with his mother and BB, a cognitive robot he designed to perform simple tasks and keep him company. Paul is immediately smitten with the girl next door, Samantha, played by Kristy Swanson from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie. They form a close friendship along with Tom, the paperboy. Sam’s father is an abusive drunk who mistreats his daughter. She sneaks out of the house whenever she can to be with Paul and they develop a romance. During a Halloween prank gone wrong BB is destroyed, and its partly Tom’s fault. A paranoid old recluse, Elvira Parker, blasts the robot apart with a shotgun. Tom had dared Paul to have BB bypass security and trick or treat at the house. Things get much worse soon after, when Sam’s father strikes her, knocking her down the stairs and leaving her brain dead. Paul’s world is shattered and he devises an uncanny plan to "save" Sam.

You may already know what the heartbroken boy had in mind. He wants to implant BB’s microchip into Samantha’s brain to reanimate her. With Tom’s help, Paul manages to snatch Sam’s body and perform the brain surgery. You can’t just go around playing mad scientist, and after all, this is a horror film so the result was predictable. Now Sam is up and about, with an unsympathetic, amoral robot brain. She remembers who her friends were but also who was not nice. She goes after her cruel father and ironically knocks him down the basement stairs, then picks him up and snaps his neck. She also kills old Mrs. Parker with an incredible basketball decapitation. Let me break it down for you. In this most spectacular and goofy scene she breaks into Parker’s house and forcefully chucks the basketball at the lady’s head, causing it to explode in a blood burst splattering the walls and everything else. Before her demise, Parker had seen Samantha walking around outside and called the police. They swarm in on her and...

Although I have discussed most of the movie I don’t want to give away the ending. It’s because some of you might want to go out and watch it and well, since you know pretty much the main story I want to leave something fresh for you to experience. We usually decimate horrid celluloid but although this movie is cheesy and predictable it is fun and worth a watch. Though far from being spectacular I can guarantee you will have a good time watching Swanson play a murderous cyborg.

- Jorge Antonio Lopez