From John Landis, director of An American Werewolf in London and Innocent Blood, comes Deer Woman.A severely mutilated body has just been found, a victim of a seemingly vicious animal attack, which brings Dwight, a detective, to the case. Stubborn and burnt out, it doesn't take long for Dwight to get caught up in the mystery as well as a rookie cop.But neither of them are prepared for the wrath of a deer woman scorned as they track down the Native American legend.The films casual style, tongue-in-cheek horror, and wonderful performance make this one of the highlights of Masters of Horror. This reviewer's favorite.

The Series "Masters of Horror" was not aired in Germany yet, but i found the "Deer Woman"-DVD (already dubbed into German) at www.amazon.de and the story seems weird and interesting (beside, the Deer is my animal totem :-), and after all the werewolf, vampire and zombie-movies that was made in the last 80 years, it was something new: A kind of were-deer...? Okay, the (under normal conditions) shy and gentle deer is not really suitable for becoming a movie-monster, but Landis movie based on an old native American legend. So the story-core of "Deer Woman" was not his own idea. The best point is, that John Landis did not try to made the film too serious, it was in different reviews compared with his "American Werewolf in London" (wich was referenced in "Deer Woman" too), and this is true. It contains a kind of humor of it's own, bizarre dialogs and ideas. The story flows straight forward in the typical plot of a "X-Files" episode. The only disadvantages are in my opinion the weak ending (there is not really a showdown, and we never find out why the Deer Woman kill all the man) and that we not get more info about the Deer Woman and the Deer Woman legend. Searching on the WWW shows, that the version used by John Landis is only one version. Other versions of the legend depicts the Deer Woman not as a killer, but very dangerous for man too: In these stories, a beautiful young woman meets a young man and entrances him into a sexual relationship. The woman is so beautiful that the young man is often swayed by her beauty away from family, home, community. If the young man is so entranced as to not notice the young woman's feet (hooves) then he falls under her spell and stays with her forever, wasting away into depression, despair, prostitution, and ultimately, death. All in all, a well made short movie, not groundbreaking or spectacular, but a fair 7/10.

This is the most uproarious comedy I have seen in ages. My best friend and I stayed up until 3:00AM Xmas Eve watching the 1-hour film and the 3 hours (!!!!) of extras on the DVD. The highlights for us: 1) A clip of John Landis directing the 'Deer Woman' lead by yelling "Smile! Smile! Now, frown!" 2) The god-awful CGI deer legs. 3) The deer wearing lumberjack clothing. 4) The woman who murders a trucker with a stuffed deer leg. 5) The interview with the lead actress, during which she debates whether it was a positive or negative that her part had no lines. Believe me--it was a positive. 6) The smile the 'Deer Woman' gives looks exactly like the smile on the woman who shoots ping-pong balls out of her privates in 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'. 7) The Troma-level acting of Officer Reed. 8) The fact that the trucker is wearing a hat that just says 'Wiener.' 9) The 1.5 minutes of the hour-long interview with Landis where he actually talks about this film. 10) The stills. My God, the stills. I run a little club titled Le Bad Cinema, which consists of a small group of masochists who punish each other by screening progressively awful films. This will be my entry for our next meeting. God bless you, John Landis.

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.