Alright, so put all the lame jokes you may have heard about this movie aside because it wasn’t actually that bad. I was indeed quite surprised by not just the acting but by the story as well. Yes, you’d have to just put aside that hilarious movie poster along with the movie title, but once you get past that, it’s a pretty enjoyable psychological horror movie.

Coming in blind, I had expected the movie to be based mainly on cheap jump scares to get the scares in. To my lovely surprise, The Woman in the Yard is more of a slow burn type of horror. It plays on the fears and grief of a single mother having to raise both her son and young daughter all by herself. The tension slowly builds within the family and sure enough, the mysterious lady arrives in their backyard. Danielle Deadwyler, playing as Ramona, was incredible and saved the movie from being worse than it’s actually portrayed in the reviews. Her emotions on screen feel so raw and powerful. When she gets mad at her kids, you know she ain’t playing around. 🤣

So, final thoughts on the movie? Well, I didn’t actually mind the setup. Ramona’s grief and guilt being portrayed as the mysterious woman to “help her move along” is nothing new. It was easy to see that while she loved her kids, she just couldn’t push through all of her troubles. And I’m okay with that. It’s not always the case that a protagonist will be able to fight through their burdens and grief to emerge a better person. But as for the ending? I didn’t like it, but nor did I dislike it too much.

My initial takeaway is that Ramona gave up and committed suicide via the shotgun. No, the audience didn’t actually hear the shotgun blast, but two things gave it away from my perspective. Firstly, I don’t believe in coincidences, especially in movies like these. Ramona had not paid the electricity bill, and they were without it for the majority of the movie. So how is it that all of a sudden the power is restored once Ramona emerged from the battle with the woman? I’m sure some would like to take that as a sign that she was victorious, but I digress because of point number two. At the very end, we see a painting (of Ramona?) of a lady in some sort of green mask? But the obvious hint that something is wrong is how it panned to her signature on the painting. It spelled Ramona backwards. To me, that’s a pretty damn obvious sign that things aren’t right. It reminded me of that scene in which Ramona communicated with her husband in her dream/consciousness. Things turned ugly when she realized that everything was backwards. Finally, it reminds me of the scenes in which Ramona herself gets frustrated at having to remind young Annie to write the letter “R” correctly (she writes it backwards). These things lead me to believe that she didn’t emerge victorious in the end and succumbed to her grief, sorrow, disappointment, and guilt.