Deer Woman (Masters of Horror)

"Deer Woman (Masters of Horror)"

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

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.

The scene transitions to Detective Dwight Faraday (Radioland Murders' 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. 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 victim was seen with a beautiful, Native American woman before he died. 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 minor animal attack case.

Cinthia Moura as The Deer Woman

Back at the station, Faraday is distracted by the mystery of the dead trucker, and comes to the realization that the victim was trampled from the groin upward. He 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 hoofprints on what is left of his body.

Elsewhere, a businessman encounters a beautiful, silent Native-American woman (Cinthia Moura) who takes the man to a hotel. The businessman is later labeled the second victim. Afterward, Dana and Faraday ponder how the murder occurred; thinking about having a deer in the cabin, or 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, but dismisses all of his theories as implausible. Elsewhere, the same mysterious Native American woman walks into the shop of a blond Southern man and uses her charm to seduce him.

In the morning, Reed confronts Faraday about finding yet another dead body, and they go down to the morgue to examine the new cadaver. The cadaver is that of the businessman, 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. Reed and Faraday head off the new crime scene.

Upon arriving, they are confronted by other investigators. While Reed and Patterson are fighting about Faraday's right to be there, Faraday measures the distance between the bloody hoofprints left at the scene. The two are quickly kicked out of the scene and leave for home. Faraday decides to walk. As he passes a Native American mural, he stops at several places where the Deer Woman image is portrayed.

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 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 malevolent forest spirit resembling a beautiful young woman with deer legs, who sexually arouses and kills 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 a hundred years ago when eleven 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 and attacks Reed.

Faraday races to Reed's apartment, but is too late: Reed already dead. 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 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".

Cast

• Brian Benben as Dwight Faraday
• Anthony Griffith as Officer Jacob Reed
• Cinthia Moura as The Deer Woman
• Sonja Bennett as Dana
• Julian Christopher as Chief Einhron
• Don Thompson as Detective Fuches
• Alex Zahara as Detective Patterson

Allusions

• 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.

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.

External links

• Deer Woman at AllMovie
• Deer Woman at IMDb