Deadly Friend

💡 Did You Know?

Director Wes Craven and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin's original vision for the film was a PG-rated supernatural science fiction thriller, with the primary focus being on the macabre love story between Paul and Samantha, as well as a secondary focus on the adults around them and how they are truly monsters inside themselves. Craven filmed this version of the film and Warner Bros. decided to screen it to a test audience mostly consisting of Craven's fans. The response from fans was negative, criticizing the lack of violence and gore seen in Craven's previous films. The studio eventually discovered Craven's popularity as a horror film director. The president of Warner Bros. at the time, Mark Canton, demanded Rubin write six additional gore scenes into his script, each bloodier than the last. Rubin worked very hard with Craven to create a very deep and heartfelt movie out of it. Unfortunately, added gore scenes, re-shoots, and post production re-editing of the movie heavily changed the original story. Craven and Rubin expressed strong anger at the studio and thus disowned the film.