The Woman in the Yard (2025)

“Ramona” (Danielle Deadwyler) is hobbling around their remote rural home with her two, bored, kids “Taylor” (Payton Jackson) and “Annie” (Estella Kahiha) when they espy a woman, clad in black, sitting on a chair on the edge of their property. “Ramona” goes out to investigate and returns somewhat spooked. She locks them all in, but the disappearance of their yapping dog “Charlie” and lots of dark shadows cast across their house as their enigmatic visitor seems to get ever closer, sees the family get more and more nervous as home truths start to emerge and we learn just why she has her leg in a brace. This has a few moments of menace to it, especially as the lighting and the audio are used to quite good effect towards the end, but the remainder of this is missing too many elements to the story to make it very compelling. Nobody’s acting is up to much and the writing delivers dialogue and repetitious scenarios that struggle to stretch this short story out for ninety minutes. Nothing very new, here, sorry.