Latest from the Blumhouse stable of horror is The Woman in the Yard, a film which does exactly what is says on the tin. An isolated farmhouse sees mother Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) lying in bed watching film clips on her phone of her and what turns out to be her late husband who was killed in a car crash that also saw her badly injured and now on crutches. Her woes are not confined to the loss of her husband but also that she has no income with the electricity already cut off, unable to buy food for the family dog and her children to look after. Her eldest is Taylor (Peyton Jackson) a truculent teenager that Ramona struggles to keep in check and at the same time home schooling her young daughter (Estella Kahiha).
Stricken with grief and blaming herself for the car accident her wrestle with just why she should carry on which seems to manifest itself by the woman in the yard who turns up, face covered and dressed head to toe in black and sat in their yard facing the house. Her presence pushes them all to act differently: Ramona tries to talk to the woman but gets little sense out of her, Taylor wants to face her down with his father’s rifle, whilst his sister stays in the house and their pet dog mysteriously disappears.
At the core of all this is grief and how Ramona is struggling to cope with the loss of her husband and maintain being sole parent responsible for two children one of which is at that awkward teenage where he thinks he knows best. It’s a slow build with layers revealed with the expected, though occasional, creepy moments in such a Blumhouse production and there’s an effective sequence that nods to Nosferatu’s creeping shadow.
It’s a decent cast and all are convincing in the roles in what at times a plodding script from Sam Stefanak and it all builds to a muddled final act that’s doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s a shame because director Jaumne Collet-Serra has a back catalogue of crowd pleasing titles to his name that includes the recent Netflix Christmas hit, ‘Carry on’, shark movie, ‘The Shallows’, blockbuster, ‘Jungle Cruise’ actioner, ‘Non-Stop’ and the horror hit, ‘Orphan’ (2009). That last film was an effective and creepy success but this return to the horror genre is far less so and is likely to leave audiences puzzled and more likely irritated than creeped out.
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related feature : Where they really shot The Shallows…….
Here’s The Woman in the yard trailer……
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