The Woman in the Yard, 2025.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
Starring Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Russell Hornsby, Peyton Jackson, and Estella Kahiha.
SYNOPSIS:
A mysterious woman repeatedly appears in a family’s front yard, often delivering chilling warnings and unsettling messages, leaving them to question her identity, motives, and the potential danger she might pose.
All movies require a suspension of disbelief to varying degrees. Sometimes that comes easily, and other times it feels strained. This isn’t a discussion on where that line is, but director Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Woman in the Yard (which comes from a screenplay by Sam Stefanak) is built on a series of try-hard contrivances that render the film boneheaded before the not-so-scary scares begin.
Danielle Deadwyler’s Ramona is a widowed mother depressed from the loss of her husband, David (Russell Hornsby), resulting from a car accident in which she was a passenger. She struggles to get out of bed in the morning (likely an everyday occurrence in the wake of David’s death) and tend to her teenage son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and young daughter Annie (Estella Kahiha), incapable of keeping the house stocked with everyday supplies. There is no dog food left, meaning Taylor gives the canine an oversized serving of human food, which is enjoyed in the moment but barfed up soon after when the family is eating breakfast, a meal that Taylor had to get creative with adding Doritos.
“Taylor, why did you give the dog human food?”
“You haven’t bought more,” he says.
Living on a remote farm with a dream yard once filled with irises, Ramona’s electricity has also gone out. Much to Taylor’s chagrin, she can’t get it fixed today. She also has her mobility hampered by a leg brace, which she was instructed to wear after that car accident. Suddenly, a woman dressed in all black with a veil covering her face (Okwui Okpokwasili, an uneasy and foreboding presence), as if she were attending a funeral, appears in the now-empty yard, seemingly with no intention of moving.
Taking all of that in, The Woman in the Yard is working overtime to come across as one of Jaume Collet-Serra’s usual isolated location films (with previous experience in thriller and horror genres), and back the characters into a no-escape corner that, in execution, is implausibly absurd. Even the leg brace feels less like a reminder of how destructive the car accident was and more of a crutch (no pun intended) for peril and urgency. The titular Woman is more of a metaphor than a threat; she rarely moves closer to the house, and occasionally appears sitting in a chair. Much of this film’s construction unnecessarily complicates the situation and gives an illusion of terror.
Why don’t they leave the house? The filmmakers respond by cutting off electricity to the house and the only working vehicle, giving the protagonist an injured leg, and trying their damnedest to make any of this scary. It’s creepy and something to question, but is nonsensically used as a catalyst to bring about long-gestating dysfunctional family drama, forcing Ramona to confront the truth of the incident, process her grief, work through her parenting difficulties, and battle something else internally that shouldn’t be spoiled. In other words, the movie is as goofy as its title, which practically demands someone to explain it’s a horror movie after mentioning it.
Shortly after the Woman’s arrival, Ramona heads outside for an eerie chat that rattles her. She returns inside the home and tells the children it’s an escapee from the psych ward. From there, the family sticks around one another in the same room, with the children gradually getting out Ramona’s nerves, whether it be because Taylor is not buying her story and decides to irritate her by repeatedly bouncing a ball off the wall, or Annie repeatedly failing correctly making an R in a hand writing exercise.
If The Woman in the Yard sounds boring, it is. The film does much of nothing, making broad gestures at malice (such as teasing the family dog’s death) before settling into alternate dimensions and a rather lame questioning of what’s real and what isn’t. At the very least, the Woman is more active in this portion, with the downside being that it’s the usual generic mainstream horror jump scares.
Thankfully, accomplished cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski shoots her strikingly, while occasionally capturing the vastness of the empty surroundings through some overhead shots. Also on hand is acclaimed composer Lorne Balfe, which makes it all the more disappointing how unforgettably familiar the music sounds. It’s disappointing how much talent is involved in front of and behind the camera here for something so, well, disappointing.
By the time it’s revealed what happened before and during the car accident, what the Woman represents, and what choice Ramona is trying to make, there is no scare factor. The admittedly bold, vague attempt at a grim ending is welcome but carries no emotional or even triggering impact, and that’s accounting for Danielle Deadwyler giving it her all, trying to elevate the shallowness on the page. It is appreciated that the filmmakers are attempting a more mature, psychological take on tired Blumhouse themes. However, this is tedious and only has enough material to function as a short.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
