Certificate: 15

Running Time: 88 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 28 March 2025

WHO’S IN THE WOMAN IN THE YARD?

Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Russell Hornsby, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Jaume Collet-Serra (director), Sam Stefanak (writer), Stephanie Allain and Jason Blum (producers), Pawel Pogorzelski (cinematographer), Timothy Alverson and Krisztian Majdik (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A family is tormented by a mysterious woman (Okpokwasili) sitting outside their home…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE WOMAN IN THE YARD?

The concept of director Jaume Collet-Serra’s latest horror The Woman in the Yard is a simple yet deeply effective one: what if a person just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, wanting nothing in particular, draped entirely in black, and slowly inching further and further towards you and your loved ones? It’s a creepy idea both in theory and in practise, and credit to Collet-Serra – returning to his horror roots after fun genre fodder like Jungle Cruise, Black Adam and last year’s Carry-On – for committing as hard as he can to this unsettling premise, as provided by writer Sam Stefanak.

However, almost inevitably, it reaches a point where both director and writer go perhaps a bit further than they ever needed to with their central idea, sending their film in directions that are fairly ambitious in their own way, but leaving it in a bit of a muddle by the time you’re eager for some straightforward answers. While not exactly a bad movie, The Woman in the Yard ultimately suffers from flying too close to the sun, causing much of its promise to melt and reveal something much more uncertain about what it’s trying to do.

The film takes place almost entirely at a secluded farm house, where Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) is in a pretty dire state – metaphorically as well as literally, for she’s not only nursing a broken leg following a car crash, but she’s left to wallow in despair over the loss of her husband David (Russell Hornsby) in that same accident. On top of that, she’s left to fend for their two children Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha) who, due to her crippling depression, are left with little food and, on this particular day, no electricity. It’s around this point when the woman in the yard herself (Okwui Okpokwasili) suddenly shows up, seated mere feet from their house and covered head-to-toe in funeral attire; when initially confronted about who she is and why she’s there, the mysterious woman cryptically answers that “today’s the day” and not much else. But that’s enough for Ramona and her kids to feel threatened, leading to a nightmarish day for all of them as the woman creeps closer and closer to their front door.

At first, Collet-Serra and Stefanak work in tandem with one another to present a growingly suspenseful scenario, with the director bringing an eye-catching style to the writer’s slow-burn narrative that collectively creates something legitimately chilling. It’s a very well-shot movie, with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski (his second film of the week, having also shot Prime Video’s Holland) bringing out the eerie quietness of this secluded area where, even draped in sunlight, it feels like something’s about to come out of thin air to give you a fright. Under Collet-Serra’s direction, the visuals are given a lively style that neatly mixes otherworldly imagery into seemingly mundane scenes of this family going about their business before their mysterious visitor. There’s also some sharp sound design that, when utilised at just the right time, builds brick after brick of tension until it comes crashing down in ways that may just leave you doubting the reliability of certain characters, especially when they’re already under so much mental anguish.

Meanwhile, Stefanak gets a fairly decent amount of mileage out of his initially straightforward concept, intriguingly playing things out over the course of a single, though no less tense, day in the lives of this family, who as characters aren’t exactly fresh – there’s the hot-headed teenage son, and the cutesy and innocent little girl that clutches to her penguin plushie like her life depends on it – but are interesting enough to keep you invested. The performances are an especially vital ingredient in making these characters watchable, especially Danielle Deadwyler who delivers a fierce lead turn that’s bound to draw comparisons to the likes of Essie Davis in The Babadook as well as Toni Collette in Hereditary, but the actor sets herself apart from them with an emotionally layered turn where you can tell in every syllable she utters as well as every breath she makes that she’s putting on the bravest of faces to hide her inner anguish, and at times it’s seriously compelling to watch, even amidst the more traditional horror conventions.

But then, after a certain point, The Woman in the Yard largely abandons its simplicity in favour of something much more thematically complex, and coincidentally it’s also where the film begins to derail. What the film ends up being about is telegraphed fairly early on, though not in a way that’s too obvious or distracting from the developing suspense, but suddenly any and all subtext transforms into plain old text as Stefanak spells out clear as day what the titular woman in the yard is meant to represent, sacrificing most of the ambiguity he had spent most of his script playing around with. Simultaneously, Collet-Serra begins experimenting more with surrealist visuals that not only stop the movie dead in its tracks, but also causes a lot of what we had previously seen to not really make much sense, as you’ll start questioning the logistics of certain things that neither the director nor writer have any solid answers for.

The abrupt change in direction is certainly aiming high, admirably refusing to settle for becoming just another supernatural horror (though it does become a Conjuring movie for a few minutes to give the audience a scary set-piece or two), which in addition to its strong performances and impressive cinematography does put it above many of the other recent horror movies that have come out lately. However, by targeting the moon rather than the clouds, they’ve put themselves under too much pressure to make their film appear more refined and sophisticated than it actually is, handling themes and subject matter that they’re not talented enough to cover. It leaves a somewhat unsatisfying taste in the mouth, especially with a semi-ambiguous ending that is fairly obvious from the moment it kicks into gear, yet still frustrates with its ultimate lack of clarity.

If perhaps both Collet-Serra and Stefanak focused more on the simplicity of their original premise, rather than deciding to push themselves too hard, then perhaps The Woman in the Yard could have been a genuinely great horror. Instead, it’s a perfectly fine one that ends up losing itself in its own pretence.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Woman in the Yard is an initially effective psychological horror that gets decent narrative and filmmaking mileage out of its simple yet chilling premise, but an unnecessary drive toward more complex themes and topics render it a muddled oddity.

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