середу, 1 листопада 2017 р.

MFT: Wes Craven - Deadly Friend Basketball Head Busting Scene XX



This is a scene from a 1986 film "Deadly Friend" directed by Wes Craven. In it you can see short but intense confrontation between a young woman and an old lady. They fight for the possession of a basketball. After a short struggle young woman overcomes old lady and throws her against the wall. Then she takes a basketball and throws it right into the old lady's head thus smashing it completely (David Cronenberg's "Scanners" style). Old lady's poor headless body then staggers around a bit, floundering, spraying blood before finally falling down. The end

Outside context - this scene is really funny surreal sketch that subverts tacky "girl fight" trope. But in the film it was supposed to illustrate sudden shift in character and turn to extreme hostility. As a mean for character study - it fails to make the point due to wrongful direction. Instead of developing the character it just shows gruesome violence in gratuitous manner.  The delivery is not shocking - it is almost slapstick. It wouldn't be out of place in Monty Python's Flying Circus. In fact - it works far better as an absurdist short.

As it is - it is one of the greatest scenes of over the top violence. It is standout scene in the film. It goes beyond films narrative and transcends into the realm of senseless. It gives way too much. It is needlessly brutal. It kills the story and put itself self-imposed bizarro land solitary confinement. 


***
"Deadly Friend" is very strange film. It tells a story of a boy-genius Paul who has very intense interest in technology which results in him building a robot BB. He also meets girl Samantha and for a moment it seemed like there will be a romance. They play basketball once but the ball gets into said old lady's house. BB tries to get it back but gets destroyed by the shotgun blast from the old hag. And then another tragedy strucks - Samantha's overprotective and abusive father lashes out and she suffers from an injury that renders her braindead on life support. But Paul is a smart boy and so he uses BB's microchip and revives Samantha. He combines two in one - "Frankenstein" + "Re-Animator". From then on Samantha's body is controlled by BB who vigorously explores his new state. Which leads us to the said confrontation. The story ends on a "Bonnie and Clyde" homage in which Samantha-BB is executed by police firing squad.


"Deadly Friend" caught Wes Craven in a weird moment of his career. He just had his biggest success to date - "A Nightmare on Elm Street" tore the house down in 1984 and launched a franchise but for the man himself - it did no favors. He was forced to jump from one potboiler to another - first with made-for-TV "Chiller", and then with the sequel to his cult classic "The Hills Have Eyes" which wasn't even finished because of production collapsed. "Deadly Friend" was supposed to be return to form. In its original form "Deadly Friend" was to be PG-rated Spielbergian meditation on the relationship between man and technology. But test screenings went poorly and so producers forced Wes Craven to retool the film into its present form. He added some splashy splatter gore here and there. It ruined films somber tone and turned it into unintentional absurdist po-faced comedy. I hope someday someone will redo the story as it should be told.

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