Blumhouse’s solemn horror The Woman in the Yard doesn’t strike one immediately as a Jaume Collet-Serra movie. The Spanish filmmaker is best known for his blockbuster genre flicks such as Jungle Cruise, Black Adam, and the recent Carry-On, but horror is actually the realm where he got his start with House of Wax and Orphan, both of which are pretty good. Perhaps Collet-Serra was away from it for too long because The Woman in the Yard, for all of its potential as a haunting Stephen King-esque nightmare vision, has about as much energy as grandma sitting in her favorite yard chair.
The Woman in the Yard never gets out of neutral, and it’s more of a momentum thing than an aesthetic issue. The film looks great, thanks to DP Pawel Pogorzelski (who has two movies out this week, including Holland) painting a grim portrait of grief, loneliness, and depression. In a rundown farmhouse separated far from the rest of society; Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) cruelly watches a video on her phone of her late husband (Russell Hornsby) while tucked away under the bedsheets. With her busted-up leg and vacant expression, it’s clear she hasn’t been out of bed in a long time. The cupboards are bare, the dog’s food bowl is empty, the cracks are showing in the walls. Ramona’s son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) scrambles to make breakfast for himself and his timid sister Annie (Estella Kahiha). The barren feeling is amplified by the lack of power, no doubt because Mom forgot to pay the electric bill.
As unnerving as things are inside the home, it gets pretty bad outside when a woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) shrouded in black mourning robes appears in the yard, sitting in a chair. “Today’s the day”, she warns Ramona, while moving slowly, steadily, closer to the home. The kids are freaked, but so is Mom. Who is this woman? Where did she come from, and why did she choose their home?
The question seems pretty obvious. The physical embodiment of festering despair, slowly consuming Ramona and everyone who matters to her? The mystery isn’t that compelling, and there isn’t a lot of story here. Even for a slight 87-minute runtime it feels too long.Sam Stefanak’s directionless screenplay meanders, while Collet-Serra tries to spruce things up with Black Mirror-style weirdness in the dire final act. But any revelations amount to little, even with Deadwyler offering an enthusiastically frenzied performance that’s better than The Woman in the Yard deserves.
The Woman in the Yard is open in theaters now from Universal Pictures.
