Divaclicious Review! The Woman in the Yard is Decent Enough Horror Pulp
By Caroline Cao | March 28, 2025 | Celebrity & Culture
The Woman in the Yard is one horror film that passes through the night once the scares die down after the end credits. But I give director Jaume Collet-Serra genuine credit for whipping up scares in a screenplay (by Sam Stefanak) that does not always match story outcomes to its logic.
Although actress Danielle Deadwyler was stellar in The Piano Lesson, her talents seemed muted compared to her greater works. She plays the frazzled widowed mother with a broken leg in deep grief for her dead husband. She is left to raise her two kids (Peyton Jackson as the teen Taylor and Estella Kahiha as the young Annie) in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. The film is anchored in her psychological conflicts with her children, and it does a good job hinting that the mysterious, creepy woman in black is related to her secrets and self-loathing.
Haunting this family is a shrouded woman in black. Okwui Okpokwasili is an enthralling scary presence, and this is where Collet-Serra strongly directs the scares through growing shadows and quick cuts of scares. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski also finds shots that tell the story. For example, in the opening scene, we see the mother’s eyes fixated on the phone screen while the blur of her son appears in the corner of her background. Shots like these establish these dynamics in a film oddly so remote about its human subjects.
Although The Woman in the Yard is a letdown in that it’s only broadly entertaining, the chills at least make for a worthy viewing experience.
Photo credit: Universal
