Danielle Deadwyler has had a meteoric rise to fame. She did many smaller roles in television shows and so forth before getting her big break in Till, where she played the mother of slain boy Black Emmett Till. She garnered quite a critical acclaim for the performance. Since then, she’s been Celestine in her roles she’s chosen, but one thing’s for certain. They are interesting to give the ability to be that great actress we all know her to be. Her latest film, “The Woman in the Yard,” is not different. She once again gives another emotionally charged performance. 

Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) is a single mother of two children, Taylor Tay, for short (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha), who live somewhere in rural America. She was in an accident not long before, so she’s on crutches. Her husband has passed away, so she’s been struggling a bit financially.  Her electricity is out, which in turn means her cell phone isn’t charged. If that wasn’t bad enough, a strange woman all dressed in Black shows up on her property out of the blue. When Deadwyler’s character wanders out to the Yard to see who or what the woman wants, it doesn’t take her long to figure out her purpose.

This film is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who did the most recent Carry On for Netflix a couple of months ago. That was a really good action thriller, but this is more his speed. He has done better with these atmospheric horror films. The movie is based on a screenplay by Sam Stefanek and produced by Jason Blum under his Blumhouse bannet, so you know you’re going to get something dark and twisted with this trio. The story is an analogy for death, and “The Woman in the Yard” represents that. I feel the representation of this simple is well done. How the script and tension are combined to create a nail-biting horror film is masterfully done. I was on my seat to the very end of this film. 

As one of four siblings, I can relate to a mother struggling with financial difficulties and trying to feed your kids. We had government assistance,  but it was hard because my mother had to go around and get meetings and so forth in the freezing cold winters of Massachusetts and New Hampshire with four kids under arms and tailing behind her. We ate more than my share of government cheese, pasteurized milk and beans, and franks. I had a rough life growing up. My mother did everything she could for us. The mother in this movie feels a lot like my mother, but just in a little different circumstances.  I really cared for her and her plight in the film.

The cast of this movie is relatively small with the mother, the kids, and the lady in the yard. There are some flashback sequences with the father being portrayed by Russell Hornsby.  The kids, Jackson and Kahiha, are fantastic in their respective roles opposite Deadwyler and Okwui Okpokwasili as the lady in the yard is frightening and sinister to say the least. She had abilities that made her character quite fascinating but also dark and brooding. She was perfectly cast as this embodiment of death. I hadn’t seen the kids before, but they were pretty good as well. Not whining or crying all the time like one recent child actor I saw.

The situation in this movie is one I’m sure a lot of mothers have to deal with. Overmounting financial debt, and one thing goes wrong after another. Add in psychological trauma from a situation that went bad, and you have a woman who is at her wits end. Giving up would seem like the only option given the bad circumstances she finds herself in. Taking a situation like this and making a horror film about it is a masterful idea. This situation would be bad for anybody. Deadwyler does a great job of embodying this woman and her struggles.  She seems to be great at playing mothers in tough circumstances. Her and other roles in “40 Acres” she does something similar. She is amazing. There is no way else to describe her. 

The best thing about the folm is its sound design. Every sound in the movie, from everyday household items to doors and cracks in the floor or creeping, while walking up steps. The sound jumped off the screen, and I wasn’t in a Dolby theater. I was in a normal theater. I noticed how the sound and score were a big part of what the director was going for. He was definitely trying to create a mood that I got right away. It goes a long way in making this horror film very watchable.

“The Woman in the Yard” is a horror film rooted in reality while also having some supernatural elements.  Shadowing of the house and so forth, similar to Nosferatu, created a genuine sense of dread. I was very worried about this family. The reliability factor is what put this film over the top for me. I genuinely cared about this mother and the problems she was facing. The cast was pretty good, but this was another cancer for Deadwyler to shine. She made this character her own. She’s found a knack for playing mothers in tough situations lately. The filmmakers captured the aspects of a story like this perfectly. I felt very strongly about what I was watching on the screen. The imagery, shadowing around the lady in the yard, and gripping the psychological nature of the story had me from the beginning. 

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen