{"id":11578,"date":"2025-03-28T09:03:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T13:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11578"},"modified":"2025-04-23T00:53:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T04:53:32","slug":"the-woman-in-the-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/28\/the-woman-in-the-yard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Woman in the Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Woman in the Yard<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (terror, some violent content\/bloody images, suicide-related content and brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jaume Collet-Serra\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Sam Stefanak\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lorne Balfe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Pawel Pogorzelski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 28, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, Russell Hornsby.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0I was commenting to my friend Mike as we left this evening\u2019s showing of The Woman in the Yard<\/strong> that Universal should have released it in January, the first weekend to be precise. It\u2019s 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!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan), The Woman in the Yard <\/strong>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\u2019m not exactly sure what happened. I suspect Serra isn\u2019t entirely certain either. I can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although it runs only 88 minutes, The Woman in the Yard<\/strong> 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\u2019t charged and there\u2019s barely any food in the house.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then the titular woman (Okpokwasili, The Exorcist: Believer) appears out of nowhere and sets up camp in the front yard. She\u2019s 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\u2019s up, but he can\u2019t get any answers out of his mom. Need I go on?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can\u2019t think of a single positive thing to say about The Woman in the Yard<\/strong>. It\u2019s terrible all the way through from the dull script to the unimaginative sound design to the annoying characters. I didn\u2019t care about any of the human characters in this lousy excuse for a horror film. I liked the dog, but…. let\u2019s just say the pooch\u2019s fate gives me yet another reason to hate The Woman in the Yard<\/strong>. Do I even need to say it\u2019s not the slightest bit scary or suspenseful? It wouldn\u2019t scare the most timid of viewers. The teens and tweens who show up looking for a fright fest are going to be sorely disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know what to say about the acting. I guess it\u2019s no worse than what\u2019s on display in other inconsequential PG-13 horrors. I can\u2019t believe Deadwyler and Hornsby signed on for this. He gets off easier than her. He\u2019s only in it for a few scattered flashback scenes leaving her to carry the movie. She tries, but there\u2019s not much she can do with dead weight. Okpokwasili doesn\u2019t do the whole horror movie boogeyman (or is it bogeywoman?) thing proud. She\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s been a while since I brought up Brotman\u2019s Law. It states as follows: \u201cIf nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen.\u201d It definitely applies to The Woman in the Yard<\/strong> 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\u2019s when it comes to life (or something resembling it) and takes us through a series of events too baffling to explain. I don\u2019t know for sure what happened. What I do know for sure is that I don\u2019t care. I\u2019d rather just put the whole miserable experience behind me.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Woman in the Yard (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (terror, some violent content\/bloody images, suicide-related content and brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jaume Collet-Serra\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Sam Stefanak\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lorne Balfe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Pawel Pogorzelski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 28, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, Russell Hornsby. Rating: * \u00a0I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/The-Woman-in-the-Yard-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11583,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11578\/revisions\/11583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}