The Woman in the Yard, a distinctive proposal

While it is true that the proposals in horror films have been varied since the beginning of the film industry, it is also true that little by little they have been running out of oxygen, beyond some films that periodically generate a positive impact, most of them end up being forgotten. I think that one of the problems that horror films have nowadays is not precisely the conception and proposal of the film as such, but that the audience has been losing sensitivity over time and in that sense we have also lost the ability to be surprised as we did before.

It is impressive how in previous times we were absorbed by the horror scenes of the movie, it was as if the producers already knew the perfect formula to scare us and to leave us the perception in our minds that the movie was worth it, unfortunately that has been lost over the years and in that sense new proposals have become necessary. An interesting case is precisely the film “The woman in the yard”, which was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, a very interesting name since he was the architect of films that were left to remember as House of Wax, Orphan and The Shallows, so it is clear that we are talking about a person with a hardened career.

“The woman in the yard” takes us to a farm somewhere in the USA, there lies a mother and her two children, this family recently went through the tragedy of suffering a car accident in which the father lost his life. Ramona (the mother), struggles with the memory of having lost her husband and with the difficult situation of supporting her family from the economic point of view and with a badly injured leg, which made her unfit for many of her daily tasks.

One morning, while having breakfast, one of the boys observes through the window a woman dressed in black sitting on a chair outside the house, he warns his mother who, puzzled, like her children, decides to go out to find out who this woman is and what her intentions are. The woman dressed in black remains motionless and with her face covered, being this a great reason to suspect that she is someone dangerous or that she does not have good intentions. Ramona tries to chase the woman away, but she warns her that the day has come, and well, we would later find out what she meant with that.

The truth is that as the minutes go by we will realize the supernatural nature of the woman in black, she can manipulate the leftovers as long as she has access to them, the woman tries to harm them all over the house and even tries to take one of the children, but not only because she is evil, but it seems that there is a pact in between, it is as if she were making a claim.

One of the things that makes this film distinctive, is that from the first moment it showed us the supernatural element without necessarily surprising or scaring us, at once it tells us the problem is the woman in black, but that what is interesting is the background of her appearance and that Ramona is not necessarily a victim of a demon from another world and that is something we do not always see, so it is important that you see the film to understand exactly what I mean.

The film enjoys good performances and good special effects, the latter was perhaps not very necessary, but everything related is very well done. The development of the story gradually opens doors and gives us clues to the possible causes of the appearance of the woman in black and also gives us an ending that can be interpreted in different ways. For me it is a film that fulfills its function quite well and although it will probably not be memorable, I will always keep it in mind as one that gave us a different proposal.