After the approximately $ 200 million Dwayne-Johnson blockbusters “Jungle Cruise” and “Black Adam” as well as “Carry-on”, the second most successful Netflix original film of all time, Jaume Collet-Serra apparently wanted to do a smaller production (before it is next for the “Cliffhanger” remake in the Swiss Alps): with “The Woman in the Yard“The director of” House of Wax “and” Orphan “returns to his beginnings in the horror genre and delivers a scary chamber game, the scenario of which is fascinated primarily because the horror is not in dark corners for a long time, but in the brightest sunshine and for everyone visibly on a chair in the garden.
Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) and her husband David (Russell Hornsby) bought a dilapidated farm to get her back in good time. In this way they wanted to create a nice home for their 14-year-old son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and their six-year-old daughter Annie (Estella Kahiha). But then David killed in a car accident, while Ramona hardly comes out of bed with a smashed leg and with grief. Even the electricity has now failed for an indefinite period, and without a phone you can't even call someone who takes care of it. One morning suddenly a woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) sits in a black veil motionless on an ancient iron chair in the garden – and only says again and again: “Today is the day!”
A run -down demented woman from the retirement home or an actual threat? What should you think of it when a woman suddenly sits in black in the garden?
The scenario, which, by the way, compassed a family man and a man in the garden in the original version before “Carry-on” star Danielle Deadwyler expressed their interest in the project, proves to be extremely effective at the beginning-precisely because it is so simple: someone strangely crouches in their own garden, and even emphatic requests do not help! This is a situation in which the vast majority of people can feel much easier than in a confrontation with one of the usual nocturnal shapes of terror from werewolf to vampire. So it actually becomes very uncomfortable very quickly – and even though nothing actually happens, you can understand why the level will soon shoot up the stress and frustration of the family rushing around in the house.
With the exception of one or two flashbacks, the scene of “The Woman in the Yard” is limited to the farm house and the associated garden and the garage-and Jaume Collet-Serra uses the freedom that it brings to make a film for a fraction of its usual budgets, for all kinds of staged sparrow got. The fact that the majority of the plot also takes place on a particularly sunny day seems to be almost something like an additional challenge for him in order to squeeze out the usual level of scary (and jump scares) from the situation despite this supposed malus.
Actually, everything is clear quickly
But that only succeeds-and in the end it is less due to the sun-flooded scenery and certainly not because of the manual skills of the director, but because “The Woman in the Yard” simply rises with his mourning topic. The script is crammed with metaphorical motifs, which have to do with a “Mirror” film title on a cinema program in the background, especially in every conceivable form (in the horror genre anyway very popular)), which still writes the little “R” in the background even after repeated correction. But puzzling is still not really fun, because it is actually clear from the start that everything about grief, trauma, certainly also depression, possibly even psychoses.
For Danielle Deadwyler (BAFTA-nominated for “The Piano Lesson”), this is a steep template that she knows how to use: from the first death-sad scene, in which Ramona looks at a cell phone video of her deceased man before getting up, she reveals a painful vulnerability that is otherwise more of a dramatic Oscar cost is used. And this even increases when the film penetrates into psychological abysses after the dissolution of the true nature of women in black, which one would probably not have expected at least in this consequence and darkness.
No matter whether Oscar favorite or horror shocker: Danielle Deadwyler obviously always gives everything!
But the genre joys are often in the back: At some point it is revealed that the woman's already hardly outdated forces in black appear only in the bright-by a floating knife that falls down as soon as the curtains are drawn. Not only does Ramona see this “rule” immediately, although she didn't see the knife at all-all of this no longer plays a role a few more moments later: Because both in the dark attic and a Twist reversal that takes place on a rainy night, the forces are suddenly back.
Seasoning Horror shockers with grief work has become very popular in the past few years-but if at some point you lose sight of terror from sheer trauma, it will eventually become a problem for a genre film (and a corresponding audience) …
Conclusion: The scenario is strong-and Jaume Collet-Serra unpacks all possible staging finger players to create a maximum of moments of terror even in the brightest sunshine. But in the end, “The Woman in the Yard” gets tangled in his own thematic severity.