The Woman in the Yard Review: Jaume Collet-Serra’s Horror Comeback is an Ambitious but Half-Baked Psychological Horror
Jaume Collet-Serra returns to the horror genre in The Woman in the Yard — his first in nine years since the Blake Lively-starred shark movie, The Shallows. The concept of his new movie, which is written by Sam Stefanak in his feature-length debut screenplay, sounds simple but potentially intriguing: There’s a mysterious, tall woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) completely shrouded in black sitting in the front yard of a rundown, remote farmhouse. An odd sight that you may think: What is she doing there? Is she lost? Is she waiting for someone to pick her up?
There are countless other possible questions, and in this movie, recently widowed single mother Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) decides to walk out the door with the help of her crutches. We learn that she was involved in a car accident that killed her husband, David (Russell Hornsby), leaving her all alone to take care of their two children, Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha). Because of her serious physical injury, she can’t do much around the house. Her children manage to help out a bit, but that’s about it.
The farmhouse they live in is located in a rural area, far away from civilisation and with David no longer by their side, things become difficult for them. They are forced to live in a deplorable condition with no phone, no power and no transport. Not even a bicycle. It doesn’t help either when Ramona tends to suffer from a volatile mood swing, especially when she has to put up with Taylor’s rebellious attitude. So, when they are surprised by the sudden presence of the titular woman in the yard, that’s when the mystery begins to unfold.
For a while there, Collet-Serra does a competent job setting up the dread-inducing mood and tension, coupled with Ramona’s erratic state of mind, who is still grieving over her husband’s death. The fact that Collet-Serra chooses to introduce the titular character in the daylight rather than at night, which is often the case with most typical horror movies, makes her presence all the more sinister. Enlisting Pawel Pogorzelski, best known for his cinematography work in Ari Aster’s movies, is a nice move, where his atmospheric lensing keeps the movie consistently ominous.
And more so with the identity of the titular character remaining ambiguous. At one point, she’s telling Ramona that “Today’s the day“, suggesting something gloomy is about to happen. The only thing that Ramona can do the most is to keep herself and her children locked inside the house, but a movie like this, where a sinister figure refuses to leave, someone has to do something.
As I keep watching the movie, Collet-Serra subsequently lays out the plot details with an obligatory flashback detailing what happens to Ramona and her husband that leads to the car accident. Let’s just say the aftermath of the accident that scarred Ramona both physically and emotionally has to do with grief and depression — among the two oft-explored themes seen in today’s elevated horror tropes. It’s all familiar stuff, but kudos to Collet-Serra for bringing out the best in Deadwyler’s emotionally tense performance as Ramon, while Okpokwasili equally excels in her creepy presence playing the titular character with a malevolent agenda.
The movie itself takes place in a limited setting, and that is, the interior and exterior of the secluded farmhouse, but Collet-Serra and Pogorzelski manage to play around with light and shadows to evoke a foreboding sense of fear. The Woman in the Yard looks as if Collet-Serra is heading in the right direction, only to gradually suffer from hiccups that don’t match the promising buildup earlier in the movie. Once the payoff arrives, the third act feels underwhelming, especially the way Collet-Serra chooses to wrap up Ramona’s character arc. It’s like watching a tale of two halves: one ambitious half, but the other half increasingly dwindles to a disappointingly flat conclusion.
