THE WOMAN IN THE YARD (2025)

Studio:   Blumhouse/Universal
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Writer:   Sam Stefanak
Producer: Jason Blum, Stephanie Allain
Stars:    Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, Russell Hornsby

Review Score:

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Summary:

A grieving widow must protect her two children from the unknown threat of a spectral woman who mysteriously appears outside her family’s farmhouse.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Grieving the recent death of her husband David in a car accident that also left her on crutches with a leg injury, Ramona Harris resigns herself to family life in a remote farmhouse with her teenage son Taylor and her young daughter Annie. One afternoon, a motionless Woman draped in black and seated in a chair mysteriously appears in the yard outside Ramona’s home.

Ramona cautiously approaches the Woman, who asks out loud, “How did I get here?” Ramona tries scaring off the Woman by claiming her husband will be home soon. The Woman responds by pointing out Ramona’s injured leg and the damaged vehicle in the driveway, indicating she knows the truth about David’s death. The Woman also vaguely threatens Ramona’s children by saying they are “ripe enough to eat.” She then says, “Today’s the day. You called and I came.” Ramona hurries away when she sees the Woman has bloody hands from killing Ramona’s chickens.

Unable to call the police because the power is out and her cellphone battery is dead, Ramona tries starting her car only to discover the engine won’t turn over. Although she tries assuring Taylor and Annie that the Woman is just a harmless person who wandered away from a nearby nursing home, Ramona advises her children not to engage with her. Over time, the family notices the Woman gradually creeping closer to the house despite no one directly witnessing her movement.

Already acting coldly toward her kids, Ramona grows increasingly frustrated with Taylor’s defiance regarding doing something about the Woman. Ramona also flares her temper at Annie over the girl repeatedly writing the letter R backwards.

Inexplicably driven to draw a knife due to Taylor’s rebellious attitude, Ramona hallucinates a vision of stabbing Annie. While Ramona treats Annie for an unrelated injury, Taylor sneaks outside to get a closer look at the Woman. Sensing something strange about the mysterious figure, Taylor subsequently accuses his mother of knowing the Woman’s real identity and refusing to tell the truth about the danger she potentially poses.

Following an angry confrontation where Ramona takes umbrage at her son calling her “crazy,” Taylor takes a gun outside to confront the Woman. When Taylor threatens to shoot, the Woman rises from her chair, strides toward him, and reveals her normal face. The Woman tells Taylor his mother has been lying to him about the car accident that killed his father.

Taylor returns inside to demand the truth from his mother. Ramona admits that on the night he died, she and David had an argument over her unhappiness with farm life, which inspired a desire in her to relocate their family again. Although she had claimed David was behind the wheel, Ramona confesses she was driving distracted, and thus blames herself for David’s death.

Annie becomes frightened by the Woman’s menacing shadow as paranormal activity erupts throughout the house. Ramona, Taylor, and Annie hide in the attic, but the Woman manifests in the darkness to taunt and attack them.

Ramona is supernaturally transported to a mirror world where she relives a happy memory with David. Following a sudden attack by her husband, Ramona returns to apparent reality, but in the past and in the body of the Woman when Ramona first confronted her, indicating the Woman is part of Ramona’s personality.

Ramona returns to the attic. Envisioning her mother as the Woman, Annie briefly falls unconscious.

The Woman reminds Ramona that she has been praying for death since the car accident, and she came to Ramona to answer that call to end her depression. The Woman then shows her photographs from the future to assure Ramona that Taylor and Annie will still lead fulfilling lives without her.

After sending the two children away, Ramona prepares to shoot herself under the Woman’s guidance. However, Ramona is seemingly unable to commit suicide, although the outcome is ambiguous. The Woman vanishes. Reunited with Taylor and Annie, Ramona assures her children that the Woman will not return, and if she does, Ramona will be ready for her.

As the family reenters their farmhouse, the camera shows a previously unfinished painting that depicts Ramona and the Woman merged together. Ramona’s name is signed backwards.

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Review:

Survivor’s guilt is common, or more often treated as essential for the story, among movie characters who lost a loved one in a car accident they blame themselves for. Such is the case with Ramona Harris, who has her current use of crutches to serve as a painful reminder of the recent death of her devoted husband David. She also has his totaled vehicle in her driveway, which should have been towed to a body shop or junkyard, except those locations would make it much harder for the script to torture Ramona with a persistent visual symbol of her role in the wreck.

Preferring the city to the country, Ramona reluctantly resumes life in a remote farmhouse with her teenage son Taylor and young daughter Annie. Ramona’s chronic depression has made her disassociate from her children lately, though their three-person family still enjoys a contractually obligated moment of giggling when Taylor scrambles everyone’s eggs with nacho cheese Doritos as his secret ingredient.

While establishing what everyday life looks like for this trio in the wake of the head of the household’s tragic absence, “The Woman in the Yard” attempts to begin unsettling the audience through a series of loud, yet ordinary noises. Curtains are pulled back brusquely. An attic door bangs open. A blade is forcibly pulled from a knife block. These sharp sounds don’t occur during suspenseful sequences, but during early scenes when the camera takes us on a tour of the farmhouse while introducing the family. The movie hasn’t grown legs as a thriller yet, so exaggerated aural surprises are all that currently exists to build a background of uneasiness.

Once the land is laid, the titular terror inexplicably appears on it. Sitting in a chair outside on the lawn, and draped entirely in black, the “Woman” somehow seems menacing without making a move. Ramona approaches her with caution. Telling Ramona, “You called and I came,” the Woman’s cryptic words include vague threats against Taylor and Annie as well as an insinuation that this spectral phantom knows the hidden truth about the night David died. Blood on the Woman’s hands tells Ramona she murdered her chickens, prompting Ramona to hurry back inside to play a waiting game with her visitor, though she refuses to tell the children why they should fear her.

The lack of mythology surrounding this Woman significantly reduces her threat as a frightening figure in the audience’s eyes since we don’t know what makes her mysterious presence intriguing outside of obscure eeriness. It might not mesh with the film’s theme-driven texture without creatively reworking the fiction, but it would be one thing if there were, say, a local legend about a witch who eats the children of grieving widows or some similar curse in play. Here, an unidentified specter simply shows up sitting solemnly in the yard. A creepy image to be sure, but the dearth of context limits what we’re able to infer about the danger she potentially poses.

As the standoff between the family inside and the Woman outside slowly escalates, “The Woman in the Yard” shapes itself in Blumhouse’s typically lean style. With just five total actors confined to a single, although expansive, farmhouse location, the film bears the bones of a low-budget indie with the skin of a studio-backed production. Because it’s so streamlined as a narrative, and as a less labor-intensive project that doesn’t necessitate large crews or extensive CGI, “The Woman in the Yard” shakes out as a small-scope fable that would flow better as a half-hour episode of a TV anthology rather than as a drawn-out feature, even at only 80 minutes without credits.

Despite the brisk runtime, that’s still a long way to go to get to a metaphorical message whose headlights blind you with bright foreshadowing long before the unsurprising reveal of who the Woman really is and why she’s haunting Ramona. There’s depth to the relatable parallels about grief, guilt, and despair; less so with dimensionally dull characters who only have one motivation throughout the movie, leaving “The Woman in the Yard” to languish as a mostly muted spooker that’s heavy on dour drama, yet light on lasting chills.

Review Score: 50

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