The Woman in the Yard marks another fascinating installment in Jaume Collet-Serra’s directorial career. He started in horror with House of Wax and Orphan before transitioning to several years of Liam Neeson action thrillers with Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night, and The Commuter. Soon enough, he ended up directing big Hollywood movies with Dwayne Johnson in Jungle Cruise and Black Adam. Just a few months ago, he helmed the wildly successful Netflix thriller Carry-On. Now, he’s dipped his toe back in horror before with the 2016 shark movie The Shallows, but this is Collet-Serra fully embracing supernatural horror once again.
Although early reviews have not exactly been glowing from critics and fans alike, I have to be the odd one out. This is a carefully crafted psychological horror film that operates on multiple levels. At its core, it is a thriller, but beneath the eerie atmosphere and creeping tension lies a deeply affecting meditation on grief and trauma. That’s something the trailers didn’t show much of, but it exists throughout the film and becomes the main focus by the end.
The film follows Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), a mother left to care for her two children after the sudden death of her husband, David (Russell Hornsby). Struggling with the weight of her loss, she finds herself increasingly unsettled by the sudden arrival of a woman in black (Okwui Okpokwasili) who lingers in her yard, ominously declaring, “Today’s the day.” What begins as an unsettling vision soon escalates into a terrifying ordeal as the figure inches closer to the house, forcing Ramona to confront both the supernatural and her own unraveling reality.
Collet-Serra’s direction ensures that every frame is steeped in unease. The use of lingering shots and shadowy compositions contributes to a suffocating sense of dread, while the pacing is deliberate, allowing tension to build organically rather than relying on cheap scares. His ability to balance psychological horror with genre conventions elevates the material, ensuring that the film resonates beyond its immediate scares. The jump scares we get are well-crafted and the very premise allows us to constantly be on edge.
There are compelling ideas here that make everything so interesting to watch. Like Collet-Serra’s other films such as Non-Stop, The Commuter, and Carry-On, we’re mostly in one location for the entire runtime. The idea of a woman in black showing up and staring at our main characters and then slowly getting closer and closer is perfect for horror. We don’t know where she came from, what she wants, or what she will do to our characters if and when she gets into the house. There’s a level of confusion that persists, and for the most part, you’re at the perfect amount.
The Woman in the Yard clues you in early on that this is a film about grief. Ramona mourns her dead husband and she’s an easy character to pity. But she’s also an emotionally unstable character who can lash out at her children due to the tragedy she has just gone through. This film never judges her, instead providing a nuanced view of a person living through a nightmare. There is a lot of human drama between everyone in this family, which makes the supernatural scares hit harder. Deadwyler, who recently worked with Collet-Serra in Carry-On, provides yet another stellar dramatic performance, although I want to see a movie where good things happen to her character for once. Her characters are really good at suffering.
For most of its runtime, this is an unnerving experience that had me frozen in my seat. But the section of the film that may be most divisive is the final act. The movie does a phenomenal job during the second act of not only making us fear the titular character but also getting us to question Ramona and what information she’s concealing. By the time the final act rolls around, the film starts providing answers. The execution of these reveals is imperfect, and this is where the movie begins to confuse you a bit more than a horror film should.
But there are ideas here that are genuinely jaw-dropping. It’s rough around the edges, for sure, but we have some effective reveals that work quite well. Parts of this ending illustrate the symbolism of what’s been going on, and it can feel like the movie simply reaches an inevitable ending that we saw coming from the beginning. But there are other ideas that are much less straightforward. We have some imagery that isn’t crystal clear. That won’t work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me. I found myself thinking about this movie long after the credits rolled, which is atypical because of how much content I consume. This film’s ending is sticking with me, and I’ll be doing the math to figure it all out for a while.
It’s the type of ending that could benefit from those “The Woman in the Yard ending explained” articles and videos that we can expect to pop up over the next few days. I’ll be sure to read into all of it. Some won’t like this, as some prefer their storytelling to be clear-cut and straightforward. Others will feel like this movie was a poor execution of “ambiguous storytelling.” But me? Consider me intrigued. The final shot felt like a perfect payoff of what the movie was leading toward. And even if this isn’t Collet-Serra’s best, his adaptation of writer Sam Stefanak’s screenplay is a force to be reckoned with.
SCORE: 7/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
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