Deer Woman (Masters of Horror episode)

Infobox Television episode
Title = "Deer Woman"
Series = Masters of Horror


Caption = DVD cover for "Deer Woman"
Season = 1
Episode = 7
Airdate = December 9, 2005
Production = 107
Writer = John Landis Max Landis
Director = John Landis
Guests = Brian Benben Sonja Bennett Anthony Griffith Cinthia Moura Andy Thompson Alex Zahara
Episode list =
Prev = Homecoming
Next = Cigarette Burns

"Deer Woman" is the seventh episode of the first season of "Masters of Horror". It originally aired in North America on December 9, 2005.

Plot

An ancient Native American mythological creature wreaks havoc in this horror-comedy.

The story opens in a lodge where several drunk truckers are finding their respite in booze and women. One of these truckers leaves the lodge to urinate and overhears a fellow trucker screaming in pain inside one of trucks. Curiosity piqued, the drunk trucker checks the truck out but walks away after it goes quiet. Moments later, the door is kicked out.

With a background set, the opening title opens up with selective shots of pictures on a mural of Native American folklore. The scene then transitions to Detective Dwight Faraday (Brian Benben), a burned-out detective whose main priority is dealing with animal attacks. He and his partner, Officer Jacob Reed (Anthony Griffith), are sent out on a call to investigate a strange call about a possible animal attack/murder; relating the opening sequence to the plot. Upon arriving, the officers are shown the truck from the opening sequence, and determine that the door to the truck was kicked out by something extremely powerful. Detective Faraday enters the truck with the formerly drunk trucker from last night and determines from a jaw bone that the unrecognizable mass of blood and pulp was human. Faraday then questions the locals as to what happened and determines that the now pile of pulp was seen with a beautiful, Native-American woman before he died who had the "eyes of a deer caught in headlights". Then, Detective Patterson (Alex Zahara) takes over the investigation and after a verbal battle with Faraday sends Faraday back to the station to deal with a "royal rumble" between a woman whose dog was bitten by a monkey and the man who owned the monkey.Back at the station, Faraday is nonplussed by the monkey-dog case before him and obviously distracted by the mystery of the dead trucker, and comes to the realization that the victim was trampled from the groin upwards, leaving the dog-monkey case people in a state of comedic confusion.

Faraday then goes to see the body and exchanges banter with Dana (Sonja Bennett), the attending coroner, and determines that the man died in a state of arousal and has hoof prints on what is left of his body.

Elsewhere, a business man encounters a beautiful, albeit silent Native-American woman (Cinthia Moura) who takes the man to a hotel and proceeds to give him a blow job with the man leaning back, saying "today is my lucky day". His statement is proven ironic, as he is later labeled the second victim of this murder mystery. Afterwards, Dana and Faraday ponder how the murder occurred; thinking about having a deer in the cabin, and even that a woman used a deer leg as a weapon.

Faraday goes home and tries to figure out the possible cause of the event, and his opinion on the probability. Each is shown as a filmed sequence. First, he considers the two going to the truck, at which time the woman pulls out a deer leg and beats the trucker with it. This is decided to be "stupid." Second, he considers the two walking two the truck, the girl hearing something moving around. When the two get in the truck, they hear something. When they look out, the two start to scream out in terror at a small deer with one point antlers. This is decided to be "retarded." Finally, he imagines the two walking out to the truck, the trucker states he did not leave the door unlocked. The two go in, when a anthro deer man is noticed in the front seat. The deer, dressed in jeans and red and black flannel, beats the trucker to death, kicks the door off, carries the woman off, then comes back and puts the door back in place. This receives a simple "fuck" as a possibility.

Elsewhere, the same mysterious Native-American woman walks into the shop of a blond Southern man and uses her charm to seduce this man. This is the first time when the Deer Woman is alluded to directly as the camera captures her standing in front of a deer head; making it seem that she has antlers.

In the morning, Reed confronts Faraday about finding a new dead body and tries to ask Faraday why he seems so burned-out and listless. Faraday dismisses the possibility of opening up to Reed and the audience learns that he is divorced and still traumatized by some occurrence in his life. Then, Faraday and Reed go down to the morgue to examine the new cadaver. The cadaver is that of the business man, and the same markings found on the previous victim are noted: state of arousal, trampled, deer hooves. however, small deer hairs are found and the team makes the perpetrator out to be a deer. In addition, they determine that the same beautiful mysterious woman was seen before the crime occurred. Then the body of the Southern shopkeeper is carted in, without an arm, and in a brief awkward-comedic moment, Reed and Faraday head off the new crime scene.

Upon arriving, they discover the arm of the dead shopkeeper on the roof and are confronted by other investigators about their presence at the scene. While Reed and Patterson are fighting about Faraday's right to be there, Faraday measures the distance between the bloody hoof prints left at the scene. The two are quickly kicked out of the scene and leave for home. Faraday decides to walk home. As he passes the Native-American mural, seen in the beginning of the episode, he stops at several places where the Deer Woman image is portrayed. A mugger attempts to attack the detective, which he foils and, in anger at the stupidity of the criminal, stabs the would be mugger in the arm with his own knife. In the background watching the entire scene, the Deer Woman watches in cautious awe and disappears into the shadows.

Faraday tries to convince his skeptical boss about the presence of a so-called 'deer creature' living within the city, mentioning a mutant wolf-like creature that was shot dead in Piccadilly Circus, London in 1981, (a reference to the film "An American Werewolf in London", which John Landis also directed). The police chief is skeptical but can't come up with a better explanation and gives Faraday the case. Faraday and Reed travel to a casino on a local Indian reservation where they learn from the casino pit boss about a Native American legend about the 'Deer Woman'; a spirit who takes the form of a beautiful young woman, but with her legs in the form of deer legs, who emerges from the forest to sexually arouse and kill men just for the ultimate thrill of it. The open-minded Faraday believes the story, but the skeptic Reed doesn't and wanders off; Faraday travels back to the police station to look up more history about the Deer Woman. Reed then unknowingly runs into the Deer Woman right at the casino and offers to play the game of craps to impress her. Later that evening, Reed returns to his apartment with the Deer Woman when Faraday calls from the station and informs Reed that he's found old news reports that happened over 100 years ago when 11 loggers in the woods were found trampled to death. Reed tells Faraday that he's got a woman with him and asks to call him tomorrow. Suspicious, Faraday asks Reed if he knows the woman and if he's seen her feet or legs. Reed suddenly realizes that the woman is the Deer Woman and yells to Faraday to send backup. The Deer Woman overhears the conversation and attacks Reed.

Faraday races to Reed's apartment but is too late as Reed already dead, bludgeoned to death on his living room floor. The Deer Woman approaches Faraday who instinctively shoots her in the shoulder. Examining the Deer Woman's body, Faraday pulls up her long skirt to reveal... deer legs. Reviving, the wounded and angry Deer Woman kicks Faraday across the room with her powerful deer legs and flees. Faraday runs to his car and gives chase which leads to a lonely road into the woods. Faraday catches up to the Deer Woman and rams his car into her, pinning her to a tree. Incredibly, the Deer Woman tries lifting Faraday's car off her in which he shoots her several times, until she suddenly disappears without a trace. With the unexplained disappearance of the Deer Woman, Faraday ends up laughing hysterically at the irony of his being assigned to "animal attack," the statement he keeps repeating.

Additional information

*While talking to his superiors, the main character speaks about a creature who terrorized London in 1981 and was shot in Picadilly Circus. This is a very obvious reference to John Landis' 1981 film "An American Werewolf in London"
*In the Indian casino there is a mention of Murph and the Magictones playing. This a reference to "The Blues Brothers", another John Landis film.
*Mick Garris, the creator of the series, has a brief cameo as the friend of a man winning a slots jackpot as Faraday and Reed have lunch.
*The script was mostly written by John Landis's son Max Landis, at the behest of his father. Max thought the whole concept was stupid, but convinced to write it regardless.
*The ending was one of the points which caused friction between the crew, John Landis, and his son Max. Most of the crew wanted the Deer Woman to turn into a large deer and run off. Neither John nor Max liked this concept, Max wanting to have the Deer Woman shot dead. John, to his sons chagrin, chose to have the Deer Woman simply disappear. However, when asked by Max, most of his friends agreed with his father's choice for the ending.

DVD and Blu-ray

The DVD was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on June 27, 2006. The episode was the fifth to be released on DVD. The episode appears on the second volume of the Blu-ray compilation of the series.

ee also

*Deer Woman in Native-American folklore

External links

*imdb title|id=0643103|title=Deer Woman