The Woman in the Yard Parent Guide

When Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) and her husband David (Russell Hornsby) bought a huge, slightly dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, they planned to tackle the renovation together and build their dream home. That plan saw some serious revision when a car accident killed David and left Ramona on crutches, facing a difficult recovery.

Now Ramona is dealing with deep depression, and she struggles to get out of bed for more reasons than her damaged leg. Her teenage son, Taylor (Peyton Jackson) tries keep the house running, but he’s just not equipped to handle all the domestic details while looking after his little sister, Annie (Estella Kahiha).

Things couldn’t be too much worse – or so Ramona thinks. Then one morning she wakes up to find that the house has lost electricity, and worse, there is a strange woman in black sitting on a large iron chair on the front yard. The woman doesn’t provide Ramona with her name or any other details of how she came to be there but ominously insists, “Today is the day”. Ramona isn’t sure she wants to find out what the day is for, but without phones or a working car, she doesn’t really have a choice.

This is one of those movies that has some interesting ideas, but doesn’t seem to know which ones they are, resulting in a film that feels messy. On the plus side, it makes the most of a modest budget, and the film looks good – it even manages to be scary a few times, which about half of Blumhouse movies never achieve. The plot just never seems to come together, and without spoiling anything, I have some real issues with the ending. Thankfully, the movie is short enough that I can’t complain too much about it wasting my time.

The Woman in the Yard comes in at a fairly bloody PG-13, but the complete absence of sexual content or substance abuse, and limited profanity keep the problems down to a dull roar. It’s not exactly family entertainment, but teens looking to branch out into the genre will definitely get some scares out of it, without all the sexual content frequently found in horror flicks. The movie doesn’t stand out in the crowd for negative content, but it doesn’t manage to stand out for any other reason either.