The Woman In The Yard (15)
Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Russell Hornsby, Okwui Okpokwasili, Estella Kahiha, Peyton JacksonGenre: Horror
Author(s): Sam Stefanak
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Release Date: 28/03/2025
Running Time: 88mins
Country: US
Year: 2025
Ramona barely survives the car accident that claimed the life of her husband David and tore her family apart. The widow recuperates with children Taylor and Annie in their remote farmhouse. Out of the blue, a woman draped from head to toe in black manifests on the front lawn and stands guard outside the home. When Ramona approaches the figure to offer assistance, the unexpected visitor replies chillingly from behind her funereal veil: "Today's the day."
LondonNet Film Review
The Woman In The Yard (15) Film Review from LondonNet
Death takes many forms in horror movies. A blood-sucking Transylvanian count, a masked menace who terrorises babysitters on Halloween, acid-blooded alien creatures, a hideously disfigured man with razor-sharp gloves who stalks prey in their dreams, a cannibalistic serial killer with a penchant for a nice chianti, Ghost-faced copycats fascinated with movie stereotypes. In director Jaume Collet-Serra’s mildly discomfiting psychological horror, the angel of impending doom is a titular figure draped from head to toe in black, who appears outside a grief-stricken family’s rural home…
The unwelcome visitor’s gnarled shadow lengthens at will like Nosferatu, encroaching on the property to terrorise discombobulated inhabitants and leave destruction and eviscerated wild fowl in its wake. The opening 45 minutes of Sam Stefanak’s script are the most effective, stoking tension between family members as they argue about the best course of action to persuade the woman to leave. Once the phantom’s presence infiltrates the home, storytelling becomes murky and Stefanak unboxes a narrative device borrowed from Jordan Peele’s Us, punctuated by traditional jump scares in a darkened, musty attic.
The Woman In The Yard is a stylishly executed home invasion thriller without a satisfying ending, anchored by Danielle Deadwyler’s compelling portrayal of a mother-of-two numbed by grief. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, who previously worked on Hereditary, plays with light and shadows to transform a rural farmhouse into a nightmarish and claustrophobic prison. Inside, we find painter Ramona Harris (Deadwyler) after she barely survives a head-on car collision that claimed the life of her husband David (Russell Hornsby).
Wearing a leg brace, the widow recuperates in tearful silence, abandoning her young children Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha) to care for each other in the remote, fixer-upper that was supposed to be their forever home. Ramona has forgotten to pay the electricity bill, there is no food for the family dog and when she does eventually materialise, the mother invites hostility by directing rage at her little ones.
Out of the blue, a woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) in funereal garb materialises in a chair on the front lawn. When Ramona offers assistance, the unexpected visitor draws attention to a wrecked car in the driveway. The widow’s anger percolates and she forcefully requests the woman vacate the property. However, the menacing manifestation has no intention of leaving: “You called and I came. Today’s the day.”
The Woman In The Yard chooses sustained threat over explicitly rendered violence and successfully delivers a couple of unnerving jolts as the Harris clan rallies in otherworldly adversity. Collet-Serra replays the menace of his 2009 film Orphan, which also leveraged an intriguing premise and fell short in the resolution. Deadwyler wrings every conceivable tear and guttural scream from her body in service of the muddled material. She is the whole nine yards.
– Jo Planter
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