Deer Woman

It seems as though, after a period of doing comedies, John Landis loves to do horror also. In 1981, he did "An American Werewolf in London", in 1992 he did "Innocent Blood" and now he's taking on the deer woman. The main thing that struck me about this Masters of Horror episode is it's sense of humor. Where the other episodes up to this one were quite serious, this one had a great sense of humor, which John Landis seems to have in all of his films. The next thing that struck me as good was the disturbing gore. There wasn't a lot of special effects with the gore, just disturbing cutting in to human skin type stuff. The final great thing about this was the acting was great. Everyone did a top notch job. My only problem, which also seems to always be Landis's problem, is the ending. The ending to this was one I did not care for. John Landis has always had a problem writing endings though. I found this episode about a native American deer woman that kills men to be the most entertaining of the episodes.

My rating: *** out of ****. 56 mins. Not rated, contains violence and language.

When I first heard that John Landis had directed this episode I didn't really know why because compared to the other directors, he isn't really a Master of HORROR. But then I remembered the classic horror/comedy An American Werewolf in London which has earned him this title. Deer Woman is much the same, a great blending of comedy and horror.

The plot focuses on a policeman (Brian Benben) who is investigating a series of bizarre murders where the victims are trampled to death. This leads him to believe that an Indian folklore might be true and a "Deer Woman" (Cinthia Moura) is seducing and killing men.

Brian Benben is hilarious as burned-out policemen Dwight Faraday. In one particularly amusing scene, he imagines all the possible ways of death by deer. If it weren't for his acting that scene would not have been as funny. Cinthia Moura is perfect as the Deer Woman, she didn't need to speak but her facial expressions and perfect body made the character.

John Landis' direction is pretty much perfect as he is suited to horror/comedies. Although there is more comic elements to the movie, there is a nice amount of horror in it and it is suitably gory and gross.

4/5.

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).

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.

It's campy and sort of lame, but I was entertained, and that's all I could ask for! Made me laugh a few times too! And the lead actress is just drop dead gorgeous! Stunningly so! Fun aside, Landis references at least two of his other films - "An American Werewolf in London" and also "The Blues Brothers", specifically Murph and the Magic Tones!