‘The Woman in the Yard’ Review: Danielle Deadwyler in a Farmhouse Horror Movie That Just Sits There

variety.com:

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Horror movies are now product, and most of them are so devoted to goosing the audience — jump scares, demons nestled within demons — that it’s actually rare to see a horror film of the week that’s a flat-out, old-school dud.

But “The Woman in the Yard” comes pretty close. It’s like a haunted-house movie with no tricks up its sleeve. It opens with the central character, Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), laying in bed watching a phone video of her husband, David (Russell Hornsby), as he talks about the dream he had, where the farmhouse they’re living in and renovating was all finished.

The reality is grimmer. David is nowhere to be seen, and as Ramona forces herself to get out of bed, looking depressed enough to join the damned, we see that she’s wearing a brace that runs the length of her broken leg.

We put two and two together: that there was a car accident, and David is no more. (The wrecked car is sitting out in the yard, which is…strange.) Downstairs, Ramona tries to summon the energy to be with her kids, the combative teenage Tay (Peyton Jackson) and the perky grade-schooler Annie (Estella Kahihi), and to eat the terrible breakfast of eggs and Doritos that Tay has prepared.