Major spoilers ahead for The Woman in the Yard. You’ve been warned.
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Grief is something that everyone deals with and deals with differently. But what if grief were actually a person? Or at least, something that looks like a person? How would you deal with it? And would you be able to overcome it? It’s a fascinating idea that The Woman in the Yard attempts to tackle. Does it succeed? Read on to find out.
The Woman in the Yard begins with a man’s voice telling his wife about a dream he had. He dreamt of their farm, and how all the construction and decorating was done and how much fun they were having with the kids. The grass was covered with the wife’s favorite flowers – irises. The only thing left to do was to name the farm.
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Cut to the wife, named Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), lying in bed in her darkened room. She watches the video on her cell phone of her husband, David (Russell Hornsby), who recently died in a car accident that Ramona was in as well. Her oldest kid, Taylor (Peyton Jackson), comes in to wake her up. He yanks the shades open, and she burrows deeper under the blankets. He tells her the power’s gone out.
Ramona reluctantly gets up, revealing her injured leg. She grabs her crutches and asks for strength from – well, whoever. Meanwhile, Taylor’s in the kitchen trying to make some eggs for them and little sister Annie (Estella Kahiha). The stove burner won’t light, and they’re out of matches. Taylor goes up to the attic and digs through a box of his Dad’s things. He finds a nice cigarette lighter and goes back downstairs.
Since they’re out of dog food, Taylor feeds the dog, Charlie, some leftovers. Ramona comes downstairs and eats with the kids, but it’s clear she’s distant from them. They do share a laugh, though, when she asks what Taylor put in the eggs – Doritos.
Not only is the power out, but they really need to do food shopping. And from the looks of the vases of dead flowers and piles of unopened mail, it’s clear she hasn’t paid any bills and isn’t concerned with the state of the house. Then, poor Charlie pukes, and they put him outside. Taylor tells Ramona there’s a woman in the yard. They look outside and see the Woman (Okwui Okpokwasili), entirely shrouded in black, sitting on a chair some ways away from the house.
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Charlie barks incessantly as Ramona goes outside. She calls to the Woman, but she won’t answer until Ramona gets closer. The Woman asks, “How did I get here?” But, of course, Ramona has no idea. She thinks she’s probably from the old folks’ home nearby, but she can’t get any information out of her and quickly gets annoyed. But then the Woman’s tone becomes more menacing as she says, “Today’s the day.” Then, she shows Ramona her hands, which are covered in blood.
The Woman references David and the fact that they have the wrecked truck there in the yard. Ramona retreats, going to the garage barn where she tries to use their Jeep engine to charge her cell phone. But the Jeep won’t start.
Ramona goes back inside and tells Taylor and Annie to stay away from the Woman. Taylor argues with her, making her angry enough to throw one of David’s old coffee mugs at him, and it shatters. She tells Taylor to go to his room, but he refuses, instead pulling up a chair to one of the windows so he can keep an eye on the Woman.
Then we see the Woman move her hand, and her shadow stretches out to touch Charlie. Suddenly, his barking stops. Inside, Annie works on her handwriting – but she can’t seem to get her “R’s” right. She keeps writing them backward.
Taylor starts deliberately annoying Ramona by bouncing a ball off the wall, Great Escape–style. Ramona gets mad enough to grab the ball and toss it out the window. Then she yells at Annie for screwing up the “R’s” again. She apologizes for yelling, but it’s clear the kids are afraid of her.
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Not hearing Charlie anymore, Ramona goes outside, calling him, but no answer. She finds his chain and pulls on it, but it’s buried deep under the dirt. Then she yanks harder on it, pulling the slack in, only to find the chain broken. No Charlie. And that’s the last we ever hear of the poor dog.
Ramona goes back inside, and Annie cuts her foot on one of the broken mug pieces. While Ramona takes Annie upstairs to tend to her foot, Taylor goes into David’s office looking for the key to the safe. He finds it and opens the safe, grabbing the rifle inside. He goes outside to confront the Woman, who’s moved closer to the house.
The Woman tells Taylor that Ramona hasn’t told him and Annie the truth about what really happened the night of the accident. She uses her shadow hand to flick a set of wind chimes by the door and scare Taylor. He tries to find Charlie and start the Jeep, but still no luck. Taylor goes back inside and makes Annie come to him since he doesn’t trust Ramona. He demands that she tell them what happened.
A flashback shows Ramona and David having a nice dinner out. But Ramona’s clearly unhappy. The plan they made to leave the city and move out to the quiet, peaceful countryside is just what David wants. But Ramona feels stifled, cut off from her artistic community. David says she wasn’t happy in the city either.
Ramona says all she does is make sure that everyone else is happy. David argues that they’ve put everything they have into the farm. They drive home, but instead of David driving, Ramona reveals that she was the one driving. Their argument continued, and she took her eyes off the road, colliding with an oncoming car.
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Then the Woman starts using her shadow to attack the family, sending things flying everywhere. Ramona tells Taylor and Annie to shut all the blinds in order to keep her shadow out. But the Woman manages to chase them into the attic, and they have to use one of Ramona’s paintings to block the light from the window.
Their flashlight falls to the floor, and the Woman somehow appears in its light. As the flashlight spins around on the floor, the Woman calls Annie to her. Annie disappears, and the Woman becomes Ramona – or, as it would seem, the Woman was always Ramona, as she asks, “How did I get here?” and she’s the one outside under the shroud.
The sun’s gone down by this time, and when they emerge, Ramona tells Taylor and Annie to go to the neighbor’s farm and call for help. They’re reluctant to leave, but she insists. Then, when they’re gone, Ramona confronts the Woman. The Woman reveals that she’s the one Ramona called out to when she asked for strength. But today’s the day, she says, revealing that Ramona has always planned to kill herself.
The Woman puts the rifle in Ramona’s hands and keeps her hands on hers, putting the barrel under her chin. Ramona struggles, but as she loses strength, Ramona finds herself in the dream with David. She loses herself in it for a moment, hugging him – but then she realizes that everything’s backward.
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The Woman presses down on Ramona’s fingers to get her to pull the trigger – but nothing happens. At least, nothing we see or hear. Taylor and Annie return home, and as Ramona joins them, the power comes back on. A sign reveals the name of the farm, “Iris Haven.” But then a push in on Ramona’s self-portrait reveals that her name is backward.
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When I first saw the trailer for The Woman in the Yard, I figured it would be a standard ghost story. Especially considering it’s coming from Blumhouse, which prides itself on churning out low-budget horror. The beginning of the flick certainly started out that way. But as the story unfolded, I realized it was something different and definitely deeper – a visualization of Grief and/or Suicide as a person, which is a fascinating idea.
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The Woman in the Yard shows one woman’s trip through the grieving process and how that grief affects everyone around her. Jaume Collet-Serra has made grief an artsy, surreal trip, as if it’s all happening in another world, one where only Ramona and her family exist.
One major problem, though, is that within all that artfulness is a reluctance to set rules – or at least, basic guidelines for how things work in this world. As the flick rolls on, things and characters become blurred and confused, time runs in different directions, and things appear that get dropped along the way with no explanation (like poor Charlie).
I don’t have an issue with nonlinear storytelling or nebulous endings per se. And I don’t have to have information spoon-fed to me. But when the flick is as dreamlike and jumbled as this one gets, it’s sometimes hard to know what’s actually happening.
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That said, The Woman in the Yard also draws you in deep to the most extreme feelings of grief, showing you how someone could lose themselves in it enough to want to end their life. At the end of it all, Ramona’s sadness is only rivaled by her love for her family. Depending on how you perceive it, she either has enough love to overcome her grief – or she succumbs to it. This is one of those flicks where the ending is up to you, and in this particular case, it’s not such a bad thing. There’s even a screen detailing sources for help with suicidal thoughts, which was certainly the responsible thing to do.
The Woman in the Yard is more cerebral than the average horror flick, and it’s not exactly the most uplifting thing in the world. It may leave you feeling a bit melancholy, but it’s definitely worth watching and gives you a lot to think about after you leave the theater.
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Written by: Sam Stefanak
Release date: Mar 28, 2025
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 1hr, 28min
Distributor: Universal Pictures / Blumhouse
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