Deer Woman (9 Dec. 2005)

A harried, burned-out cop believes that a recent string of murders prove that the murderer might be a deer-like creature in the form of a beautiful woman right from a local Native America folklore legend.

Director:

John Landis

Writers:

Mick Garris (creator), Max Landis,

Stars:

Walter High, Michael P. Northey, Brian Benben

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Walter High	...	Pool Player
Michael P. Northey	...	Peeing Trucker
Brian Benben	...	Detective Dwight Faraday
Anthony Griffith	...	Officer Jacob Reed
John B. Destry	...	Trucker Witness (as John Destry)
John 'Bear' Curtis	...	Truckstop Owner
Alex Zahara	...	Detective Patterson
Maxine Miller	...	Dog Lady
John R. Taylor	...	Dead Monkey Man
Edmond Kato Wong	...	Desk Cop (as Edmond Wong)
Sonja Bennett	...	Dana
Cinthia Moura	...	Deer Woman
Steve Archer	...	Business Man
Ben Cotton	...	Theoretical Trucker
Lisa Marie Caruk	...	Theoretical Girl

Storyline

When the body of a truck driver is found trampled in his truck, the burnt-out detective Dwight Faraday is assigned for the bizarre case. He arrives to the crime scene in a parking area with Officer Jacob Reed and their investigation discloses that the victim had left a tavern with a gorgeous woman and apparently had been trampled by a heavy animal in the truck cabin. Later, two other bodies of men arrive in the morgue in the same conditions, and the coroner Dana notes that all of them had erection in the moment of death, and Dwight notes hooves in the body. Dana investigates further and finds deer footprints and hair in the corpses. When Dwight and Reed talks to an Indian descendent in a casino, they unravel a Pohancan legend about a deer woman, half woman but having deer hooves and trampling men after seducing them. Without any other lead, they begin to believe that every legend is based on facts.

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Plot Keywords:

deer | crime scene | stomped to death | native american | morgue | 

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 December 2005 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

IDT Entertainment, Industry Entertainment, Nice Guy Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

57 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the paintings shown on the beginning is 'Frida Khalo''s "La Venadita"

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Goofs

Near the end of the episode when Detective Faraday leaves Officer Reed's apartment, he gets into his car which has the red light on top still flashing (as he left it when he arrived). As he enters the car, the red light appears to turn off, only to be back on in the next shot. Minutes later in the woods, Deer Woman kicks his car, which causes the light to fall off the roof and fall to the side while still flashing. Presumably it fell off the car and is lying in the road as we never see it on top of the car or see the red flashing light ever again. However, as Detective Faraday pins Deer Woman to a tree using the car, we can see the reflection of the red flashing light in the windshield on a close-up of Detective Faraday. In the very next show we can still see that the light is not on the car.

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Quotes

Dwight Faraday: A new kind of animal, one we haven't seen before. In London, in 1981 a series of brutal animal attacks were directly linked to a freak wolf that was gunned down in Piccadilly Circus.

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Connections

References An American Werewolf in London (1981)

User Reviews

The humor makes up for the few scares

I was interested in this series from when I read about it being in its planning stages... since it didn't air on TV on a network available to me, I didn't get a chance to watch until just recently, where I discovered DVDs with singular episodes, as well as some special features for the episode. Not wanting to wind up with a bunch of episodes that I didn't like, I asked a friend of mine who has watched the series for recommendations. He named this and John Carpenter's effort, Cigarette Burns. In that this is the first episode that I've seen, I can't really draw any comparisons to the others... nor to Landis' earlier horror effort, An American Werewolf in London, as I've yet to find a copy of it. The plot is quite good, if not terribly deep. The mystery is slowly unraveled, if it is fairly simple. The pacing is very good... I was never bored while watching this. I was surprised to find few scares in this... there's gore enough, and several genuine "ick" moments(including a brief but unpleasant close-up of an autopsy in progress), but there's very little to jump at. The film makes up for this with humor... and lots of it. There's a smart-alecky sense of humor throughout, and almost every single laugh works. If you've liked any comedy effort by Landis, and you can take the black nature of many of the jokes, you'll definitely find this funny. Among the jokes is the running gag of the one police officer who irritates *everyone* around him to the point of them telling him to shut up. Brian Benben yet again displays his comedic talent(as he also did on the show named after him and on Dream On, where he also worked with Landis), and proves his depth as an actor. He carries the film perfectly. The actress portraying the title monster also does really well... with no lines of dialog, she uses facial expressions and gesturing to convey the emotions, and does so flawlessly. Also, she manages to shift between a sweetly-natured feminine character and a creature of pure evil from one moment to another. The effects are very well-done. The characters are well-written and interesting. Among them, the character of Dana, who seems to be mainly inspired by Abby Sciuto of NCIS(hey, it may not be original, but still). The cinematography shows signs of not being shot as a feature, theatrically-released project... it looks and feels somewhat "TV", and it works really well. For anyone bothered by such... this has a little female nudity, a bit of swearing in the dialog and, as mentioned earlier, some graphic stuff. All in all, this is just a funny film with a horror feel to it, a dark comedy with some gore and scares. I recommend this to any fan of John Landis, Brian Benben, horror and black humor. 7/10