| Review | Deer Woman (2005) | Director | John Landis |
|---|---|
| Writers | Max Landis and John Landis |
| Cast | Brian Benben, Anthony Griffith, Sonja Bennett, Cinthia Moura, Alex Zahara and Travis Dugas |
“Well, now that we’ve had our special sharing time, let’s figure out what a deer monster has against horny men” – Det. Faraday
Warning – A really spoiler filled review –
Here’s a head scratcher; A man is effectively pummelled to mince meat inside his truck and then the door is kicked out from the inside.
Det. Dwight Faraday (Benben), who’s been relegated exclusively to animal attacks, gets the call and just can’t figure out how this happened. Upon examining the body he and spunky coroner Dana (Bennett) discover that the victim died in a state of arousal and the remains display a number of hoofprints. And then there’s some deer DNA found as well. Faraday and Officer Jacob Reed (Griffith) hear the story of the Deer Woman (Moura); a Native American legend that has it that a Deer Woman snuck into social gatherings, seduced men and pummelled them to death. And as Faraday then says to the Native-American casino manager; “It’s our only theory at this time”.
I remember when “Masters of Horror” debuted in 2005. It was a truly ambitious project spearheaded by Mick Garris that gathered together some true horror royalty; among them Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon, Tobe Hooper, Larry Cohen, Joe Dante and others. All in all these were 2 seasons and a total of 26 episodes. Each episode was around 55 minutes (with one exception I believe) so it was roughly 2/3rds of a feature length film. Some really good stuff was made, “Cigarette Burns” by John Carpenter scoring the highest on IMDB and on the whole most masters were in relatively good form. But my personal favourite was “Deer Woman” by John Landis. It’s debatable whether Landis should be considered a Master of Horror but his “An American Werewolf in London” (1981) has cemented his status as making one of the quintessential horror film of the 80’s. But he’s definitely got a humorous streak in him as evidenced by the likes of comedy greats “The Blues Brothers” (1980), “Trading Places” (1983) and “Three Amigos!” (1986) to name a few. “Deer Woman” definitely has some laughs mixed in with the horror displayed here.
This episode is so well written. The mystery and eventual conclusion are so utterly ridiculous and the script makes no attempt to disguise that fact. In fact; it makes such good use of it’s concept with terrific dialogue exchanges and, most importantly, by not explaining anything beyond the face value of the supposed legend of The Deer Woman. Which, by the way, makes little to no sense and seriously lacks a motive. There are a few golden comedic scenes here such as when Faraday can’t sleep and imagines possible scenarios on how an aroused male got pummelled to death by a…woman with a deer leg…a deer/human hybrid or simply by an adoring looking deer that wandered over there.
The performers here really sell this, too. Benben is simply excellent as Faraday. In the space of 55 minutes his character gets some good exposure and backstory. Benben, who I recently praised for his manic performance in “Radioland Murders” (1994), gets to show a bit more range here and he nails it. Griffith is one seriously charismatic dude and makes Officer Reed a memorable character and he and Benben play marvellously off one another. Although her role is small; Bennett makes an impression as the coroner and her exchanges with Benben are enjoyable. Finally there’s Moura as The Deer Woman and she certainly looks like someone who could easily seduce men. She doesn’t have any lines but she carries herself well.
And it must be mentioned that the script alludes ever so cleverly to the denouement in “An American Werewolf in London” so it’s made abundantly clear that these two films share the same universe.
All in all; this is my favourite “Masters of Horror” episode from a very worthy experiment and Mick Garris (who’s made some very solid films of his own; “Sleepwalkers” (1992) being my personal favourite) is to be lauded for bringing it to fruition. “Deer Woman” doesn’t score highly on the horror scale and my pick for the best horror-centric episode would probably be “Right to Die” which was directed by Rob Schmitd. “Cigarette Burns”, Stuart Gordon’s “The Black Cat” and Dario Argento’s two episodes, “Jenifer” and “Pelts” also score highly with me.
Physical Copy
My copy of “Deer Woman” comes from a Season 1, Volume 2 DVD box set that came out some time after season 1 had finished it’s run. I was very happy with this set (and still have it) and there’s plenty of special features for each of the six episodes included in this volume 2 set. There’s a segment on Landis’s career and a separate interview with him. There’s also interviews with Benben, Griffith and Moura. There’s also a commentary, a DVD-ROM for the screenplay and more. This was a pretty loaded set.
Here’s hoping this gets revisited for a high-def treatment as these episodes deserve to look better. This easily gets a passing grade in the A/V department in DVD quality so this will do nicely until something better comes along.
Why physical copy?
I always encourage the acquisition of physical copies as I dread the day when films will only exist as files on computers and through streaming services. The companies that put the effort into making the discs, create new artwork or reproduce the originals, issue booklets and much more deserve all the financial support they can. Therefore I will always mention the Blu-rays or DVD’s (and yes; also if I review something streamed through Netflix or the like) even though I gain nothing from it personally.
