The Woman in the Yard, since its first trailer, has carried this mystique that’s made it one of Blumhouse’s more intriguing original offerings. Unfortunately, after seeing it, that intrigue is almost completely wiped away as the film’s great potential is thwarted by underwhelming execution.
The film follows a grieving widow named Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) who, with her two children, finds herself in a tense battle for survival after a mysterious woman in black appears on her lawn.
The biggest issue with The Woman in the Yard is that for about two-thirds of it, you’re bored out of your mind watching this relatively uneventful staring contest unfold. For most of the film, Ramona and her kids simply look at this strange woman sitting just outside their house. Any meaningful plans of action are instantly batted down and the conversations are mostly focused on them rather than who’s outside. Thus, the film is in a never-ending standstill, and there’s nothing more groan-inducing than a horror film with too much talking, especially when the conversation has little depth to it.
There are boiling tensions between Ramona and her older son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) due to an accident that killed her husband, the family’s patriarch (Russell Hornsby) and has her sporting a broken leg. Despite Taylor filling his father’s shoes in some caretaking capacities, he’s often forced to stay under his mother’s direction and doesn’t get much respect for his efforts. So, there’s a bit of a power struggle between him and Ramona. And although there are some good thematic connections to death fracturing family dynamics, there’s no growth that comes from this nor a meaningful conversation between Taylor and Ramona. Their bickering simply creates a frustrating atmosphere where Ramona impedes any progression towards discovery or escape. Frankly, she’s the reason the film is so locked in place and stuck at a snail’s pace.
There aren’t even any good scares happening while the characters sit and wait — just a couple of ineffective jumps scares and confusing dream sequences. The only thing that keeps the atmosphere a little tense is the titular “Woman in the Yard” (Okwui Okpokwasili) because her presence is compelling and daunting. The character design is simple but consistently creepy, and the way she stays shrouded in mystery makes you continually curious about her motives. Plus, when she does finally make some moves, there are some really cool elements that heighten the film’s scare factor. Her ability to stretch her shadow to interact with the physical world is awesome to see, especially for a horror movie that’s mostly in the day, and it at least gives the film a unique identity.
Even when the film does decide to get off its ass and be scary, it fumbles its efforts in the big final act swing. Suddenly, there are these dreamlike elements introduced that are meant to twist your mind, but come off incredibly perplexing. It muddies up the timeline of events for almost no reason, and simply isn’t all that scary or satisfying. However, shockingly, the film almost rights the ship in its final stretch with a sharp dark that’s tough to see coming and has a lot of thematic power behind it. Once the true intentions of the Woman are revealed and Ramona’s fate becomes in flux, there are some truly jaw-dropping and heartbreaking turns that occur. All the disconnected dots of the story start to come together and even Deadwyler’s performance ratchets up a couple notches.
Despite Ramona being an annoying obstacle for most of the film, Deadwyler clearly puts in great work and gets better once her tragic flaws are exposed. She becomes this captivating heart you don’t want to see break, and she really takes the film to a gripping emotional edge. Seriously, the last moments have such a compelling darkness to them that we almost reach the depths of stuff like The Grudge when it comes to gut-punching finales. However, it never really comes together as the film’s depiction of grief never has a lasting impact. Maybe it’s because the modern horror genre is overflowing with films touching on grief and The Woman in the Yard just doesn’t bring anything new to the table? Or maybe, it’s because the final beats deliver too much of a syrupy happy ending that’s not warranted and lightens the mood too drastically?
Either way, The Woman in the Yard simply ends how it begins, disappointingly. It has great components and ideas that can catch your attention, but ends up being totally marred by its unexciting nature and really doesn’t create many reasons for anyone to see it. Frankly, it’s already fading from memory just by thinking about the more interesting and exciting offerings from Blumhouse that are just around the corner.
