RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: DEER WOMAN

26/5/2021

REVISITING THE ‘MASTERS OF HORROR’ BY RICHARD MARTIN Deer Woman Directed by- John Landis

RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: DEER WOMAN

We are living in a golden age of horror on TV. Shows like ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘American Horror Story’ have effectively taken the genre mainstream, offering weekly doses of gore and mayhem to the masses. Go back a decade or two however, and genre fans had far fewer options to choose from. Anthology shows, like ‘Tales From the Crypt’, ‘Monsters’ or ‘Tales From the Darkside’ were king during the horror heyday of the 1980s, providing cheesy and cheerful tongue in cheek horror in half hour bites. It wasn’t until 2005 that the TV horror anthology show got serious, and delivered arguably the most consistent, memorable and scary anthology show to date.

The brainchild of horror legend Mick Garris, the show’s title is no hyperbole. ‘Masters of Horror’ brought together the best horror talent Hollywood (and beyond) had to offer. Episodes directed by undisputed genre luminaries such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento and Stuart Gordon were like hour long movies brought to your TV screen. High production values, A-List talent and a free reign to do whatever they pleased resulted in some truly unforgettable work from a group of horror legends let off their leash. These are stories that have stayed with me in the fifteen years since many initially aired and, in this series, I’ll be revisiting all twenty-six episodes, one at a time, to shine a light on a fondly remembered and undeniably influential moment in horror TV history.
Join me as I take a look back at;

Deer Woman
Directed by: John Landis
Starring: Brian Benben, Anthony Griffith, Cinthia Moura, Sonja Bennett
Original Air Date: 9 December 2005
Synopsis: A down on his luck detective finds himself embroiled in a mysterious and seemingly unsolvable case when a series of violent animal attacks begin to occur with no plausible explanation for who the perpetrator may be

I have incredibly fond memories of this episode and have long considered it one of my favourites. One of Masters of Horror’s rare lighter episodes, directed by John Landis who is just as well known for his comedy output (‘Animal House’, ‘Trading Places’, ‘Coming To America’) as he is for his horror movies (‘An American Werewolf In London’, ‘Innocent Blood’), I remember Deer Woman having a fun premise that gets a lot of mileage out of its overt silliness. Re-watching it now it is, if anything, more overtly comedic than I remember, but succeeds largely thanks to playing things straight in regards to the titular Deer Woman and letting the comedy come from those around her trying to solve the mystery of her presence.

There is a great quote just past the halfway mark of the episode which I wrote down during my recent re-watch because I think it so succinctly summarised the overall feel and spirit of ‘Deer Woman’. Detective Faraday (Brian Benben) and Officer Reed (Anthony Griffith) are in an Indian Casino discussing the series of murders that they have become increasingly convinced are animal attacks and are trading theories as to how they can proceed when a Casino manager overhears them talking about deer attacks and a mysterious woman and comes over to relay to them the legend of the Deer Woman passed down to him from his father. The story he tells is of a beautiful woman who has the legs of a deer and sometimes ventures out in the world in order to seduce men just before stomping them into a fine red paste. Faraday and Reed scoff at the suggestion that this legend may be the perpetrator of the crimes they’re investigating, and question what possible motive she would have for the killings, to which the Casino manager replies;

“Why does everything have to have a why with you people? You know, it’s a woman with deer legs. Motive isn’t really an issue here.”

That line tells you all you need to know about Deer Woman. It is a silly premise. Don’t expect an explanation, don’t expect to understand why she is running around the city killing people. She is a woman with deer legs. Just go with it!

In these articles I usually run through a broad summary of the episodes general plot but, with ‘Deer Woman’, there isn’t really much in terms of forward narrative momentum. There is a deer woman who kills people, and two officers trying to solve the case. That’s about it. The joy of the episode is in watching a police detective whose whole job revolves around critical thinking, reasoning and deduction, try and solve an unsolvable crime because solving it would mean accepting that a woman with deer legs is seducing men in bars for the sole purpose of stomping them to death.

One of my favourite scenes is when Detective Farraday is lying in bed after visiting the scene of the first murder earlier that day. The victim was found in the back of a sixteen-wheeler truck, so badly beaten that the first people to find it weren’t even able to identify the remains as human. After spending the day trading theories with kooky mortician Dana (Sonja Bennett) upon finding hoof prints all over the victim’s body, Farraday is running through possible scenarios in his mind, each becoming more outlandish than the last. There is a hilarious segment where a woman is laughing maniacally as she beats a man with a deer leg, or when both man and woman scream in terror at an adorable little deer stood outside their truck, culminating in a surreal segment where a deer/man hybrid dressed as a lumberjack has a fistfight with the trucker before carrying the woman off into the woods, a-la ‘The Creature From the Black Lagoon'. Farraday’s one-word expression of frustration at his inability to come up with a feasible scenario is the comedy cherry on top.

Brian Benben is consistently good entertainment throughout, his comedy timing and deadpan delivery are spot on and the role is made all the funnier for the fact he plays it (mostly) straight. The cast, in general, is very good but a special mention must go to Cinthia Moura in her debut role. Although this is a comedy-horror, emphasis on the comedy, the Deer Woman is treated seriously whenever she is on screen. She never speaks, and everything is conveyed through a look, or a facial expression, whether that be seducing a businessman in a bar, or stalking Farraday through a derelict street late at night, and Moura totally sells it, switching easily between seductive and malicious, sweet and evil. A quick IMDB search suggests that Deer Woman was her first and only acting role and, shame though that might be, it is a hell of a role.

While it’s big on comedy, Landis doesn’t skimp on the horror either. In fact, ‘Deer Woman’ feels like something of a reversal of his best-known movie, ‘An American Werewolf In London’, in that American Werewolf is, first and foremost, a horror film. It just happens to be pretty funny to boot. ‘Deer Woman’ goes the other way, being largely a comedy movie, but with some pretty great horror elements thrown into the mix. A 5ft 10 model with hooves for feet may not sound threatening on paper, but you most certainly would not want to be on the receiving end of those deer legs once you see some of the bloody messes they leave behind in their wake. She is, silliness aside, genuinely threatening.

After six episodes of zombie voters, backwoods murderers, Lovecraftian witches and post-apocalyptic anarchy, it was a refreshing change of pace to have something that is just out to deliver something purely fun and entertaining. Deer Woman really finds that incredibly fine balance between the comedy and the horror which is so rare to see done so well. Everything about it works. The cast is great, the premise is unique and the execution is note-perfect. The best episodes of Masters of Horror transcend their humble origins and small budget and feel like a mini-movie, and Deer Woman is a great example of this.

Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode eight of the first season, John Carpenter’s ‘Cigarette Burns’. See you then!