Deer Woman

After spending far too long making comedies, another genre for which he is well known, John Landis makes a bit of a comeback with this amusing entry in the popular Masters Of Horror series. Deer Woman is definitely a Landis horror flick. Much in the same way that An American Werewolf In London did almost 30 years ago, Deer Woman mixes a steady helping of humour in with its horror. Its kinda nifty to see a native American legend that perhaps was not the easy route to take make an appearance as the monster for this episode. It would have been much easier for the writer (Landis's son, Max) to just make it a werewolf or vampire. Brian Benben is hilarious as the cop who always seems to get the weird cases. He is put upon but still has his dignity. Fans will get a kick out of a reference to American Werewolf's key setpiece. While certainly not the scariest entry, Deer Woman makes for a fun one and a welcome return for Landis.

A trucker is killed in his semi by what appears to be a large deer, and a detective from the animal attacks division (Anthony Griffith) is left to investigate. Is the killer human, animal or something else?

I really enjoyed this movie a lot. After seeing the thirteen movies from the first season of "Masters of Horror", let me say this proudly: "Deer Woman" is one of my favorites. I enjoyed a few of the others quite a bit (particularly "Jenifer", "Incident" and "Dreams in the Witch House")... but this one ranks right up at the top.

John Landis gave us a movie that is more comedy than horror, but the kind of comedy a horror fan can appreciate. He even found a way to reference his classic "American Werewolf in London" (another bizarre animal attack). Way to go tying the mythology together, John.

The deer jokes and imagery were very nice. I live in Wisconsin and I have seen my fair share of deer, so you would think that deer would bore me. Usually they do. But Steve the Deer telling the wigwam joke? Classic. The attack of the Flannel Deerman? I nearly shot Diet Coke out my nose. The scene where Anthony Griffith's character is thinking up different scenarios to explain the murder is the highlight of the film, though the actress from these sequences needs an upper lip.

Dana the medical examiner (or whatever she was) was very sexy, with haunting eyes. More than Cynthia Moura, who is actually Brazilian and not Native American at all.

You have some mutilated bodies and blood, and a description of a mangled body part that left me hurting for a few minutes. Overall, the gore is minimal, though... but what it lacks in gore it makes up for with great writing. Don't let the cover or Indian mythology scare you off. I know Indian myths sound pretty stupid, but this time we got something a little better than "Pet Sematery".

The audio commentary features only Brian Benben and Anthony Griffith, so the bulk of the talking is about height differences and the film "Mandingo". The insight that John Landis or Max Landis could have provided is absent (though John does have interview segments on the DVD).

I'm quickly becoming a massive fan of the "Masters of Horror"-series, despite this only being the third episode that I've watched. What can I say? So far, they all delivered a good story, a fair amount of tension and plenty of gory situations and hence I see absolutely no reason to be negative about this TV-initiative...This installment was directed and co-written by John Landis; a filmmaker who already deserves to be called a "master" in the genre if it were only for that one immortal classic "An American Werewolf in London". Landis also directed the very adequate "Innocent Blood" and "Shlock", but those are lesser known movies and belong more in the cult section. "Deer Woman" is a very nifty variation on the premise of urban legends/campfire tales/mythological stories that turn out frighteningly real and revolves on a stunning Indian beauty who seduces random guys and then tramples them to death with her deer legs. It takes quite a few dead bodies before fatigue police detective Faraday and officer Reed unofficially discover that the murders are committed exactly like it's described in an ancient Native American myth. The characters in "Deer Woman" are likable and there seems to be a much deeper story behind each and every one of them. The 60 minutes screenplay also preserves more than enough time for humor, witty dialogues and a truly priceless reference to the aforementioned "American Werewolf". Brian Benben is very adequate in his role of tormented copper and the unknown Cinthia Moura (the deer woman herself) is magnificent eye-candy. She hasn't got any lines but her natural charisma and gorgeous smile definitely did the job. Recommended!

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

John Landis has a fair amount of comedy credits to his name; Blues Brothers, Animal House, Kentucky Fried Movie. But his horror credits are kind of limited, mostly the video for Thriller, and An American Werewolf In London. This sums up the way that this episode runs. Deer Woman deals with a cop and his new partner working on a case involving a few guys who have been killed in a very violent trampling manner. They eventually learn that it's a half deer-half woman creature, a Native American myth.

The entire movie runs exactly like an episode of The X-Files. Rather, any of the funny episodes of The X-Files. It's very fun, but it's not very horrific. I think there was one good jump scare, but it was mostly just a lot of good quips. Very little else to say about it.