When you have access to the talents of a gifted actress with the range of Danielle Deadwyler, you may be tempted to feel her presence alone might carry a very tested horror sub-genre. It’s not that Jaume Collet-Serra’s enclosed ‘The Woman In The Yard’ doesn’t have interesting ways it wants to talk about the often suffocating aspects of grief and survivors guilt. To the film’s credit, it ventures into the darker aspects of those feelings — some of which films of this tone often pull back from even venturing down. Despite this and Deadwyler taking hold of this story, the film contorts its scope with unexplained lore and the need to interject horror tropes to make things spooky.
It’s as if ‘The Woman In The Yard’ loses faith in an already bleak metaphorical tale about grief and how it burns through your mind and memories. The first glimpse the audience sees of Ramona (Deadwyler) is her in bed watching a video of her husband David (Russell Hornsby) talking with her about an idelic life he dreamt concerning their family and a farmhouse. While the narration continues, Collet-Serra utilizes quick glimpses of the house itself. One of the final images is a massive crack in the wall near a staircase – a not-so-subtle hint that this house is not the paradise this family has hoped for.
In reality, Ramona is locked in the depths of depression. David is not around; he perished in a car accident some time ago. Ramona sustained a bad leg injury due to what happened. She is trying her best to care for her two children, Tay (Peyton Jackson) and youngest Annie (Estella Kahihi). Tay has somewhat begrudgingly taken on some duties like cooking and being the caretaker for Annie as his mother is still recovering physically and mentally. But things are going downhill fast; there’s a pile of unpaid bills, the power goes out in the house, and everyone’s phone is dead.
(from left) Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), Annie (Estella Kahiha), and Taylor (Peyton Jackson) in The Woman in the Yard, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
If this family thought their luck was terrible, another unexpected occurrence worsens things. Right outside their door, a woman dressed in black with a veil to match (played by Okwui Okpokwasili) sits ominously in a chair. The kids are spooked, so Ramona goes outside to determine what this mysterious figure wants. But why does she know about David and the banged-up truck from that night Ramona keeps under a tarp? This is getting ridiculous. As you will be able to deduce rather quickly, the woman cloaked in black is fate coming to deal its hand of judgment to Ramona. But why does it feel like the widowed wife and mother knows her?
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Much of the film’s second act is this evil presence slowly intruding on the house, and the family of three quarrels about what course of action to take. The better part of Sam Stefanak’s story focuses on the complexity of what Ramona feels. Of course, there’s the central part of her wanting to lead her children to safety, but another side to her psyche is not so altruistic. Conveyed in flashbacks and disortenting visions of brief psychosis, you find out Ramona may not have wanted this life to begin with. Right there is a complex entanglement of nilishic feelings. Deadwyler pushes this to its maximum effectiveness. Imagine losing someone you love while also constantly mourning a possible life where you could have been happy. The house serves as a literal coffin for Ramona, and that’s where the best parts of ‘The Woman In The Yard ” are.’Visual moments with shadows as the presence encroaches on the house are reminiscent of what “Nosferatu” uses. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski plays around with perception and aspect ratio, invoking suspense.
To that effect, the film runs out of steam when it doesn’t know how to build off its character study. The thorns are most apparent in the third act, where ‘The Woman In The Yard’ pours off prototypical jump scares and a flurry of reveals reiterating what you know while throwing more uncertainty into the mix. That’s a limiting factor when doing a horror film that has circled the wagons of anguish so many times. Grief can be a horrific emotion because there’s no timetable to get over it (if you ever do). The film acknowledges that walking in melancholy might take us to darker parts of feeling we might not be prepared to confront. But its defining statement (or many?) will leave you scratching your head.
