By all rights, this should be a crappy little short film, but I found it surprisingly entertaining. The Masters of
Horror is the brain child of director Mick Garris. Garris created an anthology of one hour movies written and directed by various
horror movie director icons that were aired on Showtime from 2005 through 2007. John Landis made two movies, Deer Woman,
written by his son and aired in the first season, and Family which aired in season two. In my opinion, Deer Woman
is
by far the superior of the two. While the series appears to have been a
fly-by-night jaunt for everyone involved, I actually found
this one pretty fun.
The best way for me to describe this film is "cheeky."
It doesn't take itself too seriously, which is probably due to the
subject matter: a half-deer woman from Native American folklore seduces
men and tramples them to death. Could anyone truly take that
story seriously? Of course not! Now, the choice of the seductive deer
woman is brilliant. After all, this chick doesn't say a word
and yet still manages to bring man after man into a secluded spot to be
trampled - a tall order! Our femme fatale is played by Brazilian
model (#26 on Maxim's Hot 100 list for 2006) Cinthia Moura. The fact
she never says a word, and yet manages to conceal the fact that she's
literally got the legs of a deer (I know, stupid, right?)... totally believable. Although it does make me wonder if she speaks
any English. Anyway, that's about all I'll say about that; brillaint casting.
Another notable role in this movie is the hilariously
titled "Theoretical Girl", played by Lisa Marie Caruk. The entire
point for Caruk's role is for the chief detective (played by Brian
Benben) to envision various senarios in which a man ends up trampled
to death by a deer while in the company of a beautiful woman. It's a
pretty hilarious little sketch; totally absurd, but funny.
One thing that did bother me in this movie was the way references were slipped into the flick. While I appreciated the sly
reference to The Blues Brothers in the Indian casino, the reference to Landis' landmark film, An American Werewolf in London
was just way too bluntly inserted. Horror fans know who Landis is... you don't need to beat the reference (or us) with a stick.
This was a fun flick, but as with most modern horror
flicks, the less you invest in it before you watch it, the better you'll
ultimately enjoy it. Since this was a fairly low budget made-for-tv
"short", you really can't expect the moon, but what Landis is able
to deliver is worth your time to watch.
Movie to Skip: Masters of Horror: John Landis: Family
Similar to Deer Woman this is a low budget made-for-tv "short" that attempts to use comedy to overcome the
budgetary shortfalls. Unlike the superior Deer Woman, however, Family
never really acheives that goal successfully. Our
story centers around a modern day Norman Bates, but he's living in the
middle of suburbia rather than in a motel in the middle of
nowhere. One would think that would complicate our predator's appetite,
but apparently not... and how Harold the serial killer (played by
veteran actor, George Wendt) pulls this off successfully (and then
ultimately unsuccessfully) is never really explained. Is it a plot hole
that could have been patched with another half hour of film? Probably
not -- they knew what they had to work with going into it, so why
leave a blind spot at all? Poor writing, period. (Not to mention the
fact that the dark comedy element really isn't that funny.)
The one good thing about this movie is that the set up is very well done. Wendt comes off as super creepy, and the atmosphere,
despite living in the middle of suburbia (or maybe, because it
does), is surprisingly dark and ominous. In fact, right up until we
started getting into the story proper, I was sold. But once our
character starts unfolding, I got a little confused. Is Harold a really
dark anti-hero I'm supposed to be rooting for? If so, what 'good' is he
going to perform that I can get behind? What about the apparent
intended plucky victim Celia (played by the enticing Meredith Monroe)?
Do we root for her, or has she got some dark secrets of our own
that we need to stamp out?
Unfortunately, the story doesn't really give us much of a hint as to which way we should lean until an entirely formulaic
and uninspired ending is sprung on us at the last minute. The pieces were technically in place for us to figure out the ending, but
when you consider that ending early on, you think to yourself:
"nah, that would just be stupid..." And sadly, you were right. A total
lack of
creativity drives the ending of this movie, which is lame. It doesn't
entirely kill the movie, when you consider what you're buying into (a
low budget made-for-tv "short") at the start, but it is still pretty
disappointing.
I could have skipped this one and been just fine. But, unfortunately I saw Deer Woman first, which made me think I
should watch this one too. I was wrong. Totally skip-able. Good set up; poor follow through.
