There is an increase in the number of horror films released every year, and what can be seen as unique amongest these, the real horror does not stem from maximize, zombies or even chainsaw maniacs, instead, the most imminent threat comes from the characters battling the feeling of guilt, depression and even trauma. This theme is often dealt with as subtext, but with the recent movie The Woman in the Yard, this idea takes the forefront. The advertisement promoted this film in a way that made it quite easy to describe as another subpar supernatural thriller. The problem here is that even though the movie does not meet the bare minimum audience expectations, it does nothing beyond that. It continues slowly and inconsistently, and unfortunately, even a strong lead performance from Deadwyler is unable to save the film.
In her role, she is a woman who lives on a secluded farm in Georgia, grieving the recent death of her husband alongside her teenage son Tay (Peyton Jackson) and daughter Annie (Estella Kahiha). Ramona, played by her, has a husband (Russell Hornsby) who dies in an automobile accident, and as a result, she develops a broken leg and is unable to move forward. Due to her self imposed isolation from reality, she stops paying bills and one day, wakes up to the outage of electricity. Now, things are already a bit too much to handle, but growing up is incredibly challenging for Tay because he notices a strange woman sitting in a chair on the lawn, her head covered by a black veil and her body wrapped in a long black shroud.
While attempting to get to the bottom of the situation, Ramona discovers that the woman with blood on her hands was asking questions such as, “How did I get here?” After remarking, “Today’s the day,” Ramona proceeded to close the door and hide from the children. In a way, she was behaving as if something alarming was occurring, yet she sealed any possibility of Tay using a nearby farm’s phone to call for help. By the end of the day, stresses begin to build inside the house with the expectation that secrets will be uncovered that will contradict the narrative. This change of pace is unexplained here because anyone coming across this needs to disregard the precise details about the PG-13 rating given to the film by the MPAA. After all, that information is critical to the spoiler.
The movie is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who has worked on silly Liam Neeson thrillers like Unknown and Non-stop, as well as the lackluster Dwayne Johnson action films Jungle Cruise and Black Adam. He was best known for his diabolically clever genre-subversions in Orphan and The Shallows, which was the best killer shark movie without “Jaws” in the title. Due to his presence as well as his return to his best working genre, I found myself semi-looking forward to this, at least as much as anyone can towards a movie that does not bother with press screenings. Because of those hopes, I was even more let down by the outcome. The main issue seems to be that the screenplay by Sam Stefanek is so literal in depicting the struggles of being lost in grief that all of the work is done for the audience.
Because the story shows its hand, it has nowhere to go until its closing moments, which are intended to be gut-wrenching but somehow don’t land quite as powerfully as Stefanek and Collet-Serra set them up to do.
Now, let me be clear: none of this rests at the feet of Deadwyler. She is the one who gives everything to the material and delivers in a way that would have stymied other actresses. From the beginning, she sells Ramona as a woman in a constant and desperate bid to keep herself from falling apart for her children, but in reality, she is in a very fragile state, even before the woman in the yard shows up. She manages to beautifully express the mixture of grief, rage, horror, and guilt that Ramona tries to keep in check, striking the right balance of emotional intensity from the start and maintaining it throughout. Deadwyler is an absolute standout throughout, and although the performances from the rest of the cast are more than fine, she truly is as strong and effective as anything that she has done before.
Regardless of her hard work, “The Woman in the Yard” fails to come together as a single effective entity. The script constantly reads as if it were made up of rejected concepts from M. Night Shyamalan’s dumpster, and it ultimately ends in a way that would have been extremely touching and profound in a more powerful film, but unfortunately, it does not work here. It is certainly different from the normal genre antics, and will likely annoy audiences who show up expecting those antics, thanks to the trailers but never seems to fully make the turn to become truly captivating and interesting on its own.
To Watch More Movies Like The Woman in the Yard (2025), Visit Soap2day.