The Woman in the Yard (2025)    Universal/Horror    RT: 88 minutes    Rated PG-13 (terror, some violent content/bloody images, suicide-related content and brief strong language)    Director: Jaume Collet-Serra    Screenplay: Sam Stefanak    Music: Lorne Balfe    Cinematography: Pawel Pogorzelski    Release date: March 28, 2025 (US)    Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, Russell Hornsby.

Rating: *

 I was commenting to my friend Mike as we left this evening’s showing of The Woman in the Yard that Universal should have released it in January, the first weekend to be precise. It’s become something of a tradition lately for the movie year to kick off with a lame PG-13 horror film. It turns out it was supposed to open on Jan. 10, but it got moved to this weekend for unspecified reasons. Either way, the end result is still the same. It sucks!

 Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan), The Woman in the Yard starts off boring and stays that way until the last 15 minutes when it culminates in a series of confusing events. I find myself at a loss as to how to explain the ending. I’m not exactly sure what happened. I suspect Serra isn’t entirely certain either. I can’t even say the writer or anybody else involved in the making knows for sure. I think they might have been going for an ending that audiences will talk about afterwards. They probably will, but not in the way the makers intended.

 Although it runs only 88 minutes, The Woman in the Yard still feels stretched out. The plot is threadbare at best and barely existent at worst. Recently widowed Ramona (Deadwyler, Till) is dealing with a lot right now. She still bears the physical and emotional scars of the car accident that claimed the life of her husband (Hornsby, Fences). Both are crippling, but she still has to find it in herself to take care of her children, son Taylor (Jackson, Best Foot Forward) and daughter Annie (Kahiha). The power is out, the phones aren’t charged and there’s barely any food in the house.

 Then the titular woman (Okpokwasili, The Exorcist: Believer) appears out of nowhere and sets up camp in the front yard. She’s clad in black from head to toe and seems to know Ramona somehow. She just sits there staring at the house. Strange things start to happen. Ramona, clearly hiding something from her kids, starts to unravel. Taylor knows something’s up, but he can’t get any answers out of his mom. Need I go on?

 I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about The Woman in the Yard. It’s terrible all the way through from the dull script to the unimaginative sound design to the annoying characters. I didn’t care about any of the human characters in this lousy excuse for a horror film. I liked the dog, but…. let’s just say the pooch’s fate gives me yet another reason to hate The Woman in the Yard. Do I even need to say it’s not the slightest bit scary or suspenseful? It wouldn’t scare the most timid of viewers. The teens and tweens who show up looking for a fright fest are going to be sorely disappointed.

 I don’t know what to say about the acting. I guess it’s no worse than what’s on display in other inconsequential PG-13 horrors. I can’t believe Deadwyler and Hornsby signed on for this. He gets off easier than her. He’s only in it for a few scattered flashback scenes leaving her to carry the movie. She tries, but there’s not much she can do with dead weight. Okpokwasili doesn’t do the whole horror movie boogeyman (or is it bogeywoman?) thing proud. She’s no more frightening than an elderly neighbor suffering from senility. As for the two kids, I can only hope their agents get them better gigs.

 It’s been a while since I brought up Brotman’s Law. It states as follows: “If nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen.” It definitely applies to The Woman in the Yard even though reels are a thing of the past. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen and it never does. It just runs in place through wet cement until it nears the end. That’s when it comes to life (or something resembling it) and takes us through a series of events too baffling to explain. I don’t know for sure what happened. What I do know for sure is that I don’t care. I’d rather just put the whole miserable experience behind me.