Is it a ghost or just grief? 'The Woman in the Yard' leaves you guessing | The Haunted Column

There’s a particular kind of horror that doesn’t come with screams or blood but with silence, hesitation, and the weight of something left unsaid. 'The Woman in the Yard' fits firmly in that category. It’s the kind of film where the camera lingers a little too long, where a character’s pause speaks louder than any dialogue, and where grief becomes its own kind of ghost story. It doesn’t jump out at you — it seeps in.

At the centre is Ramona, played with raw restraint by Danielle Deadwyler. She’s recently widowed and physically scarred from a car crash. Her house is too big, too still. She spends most of her days limping from one shadowed room to the next, cleaning a home that no longer feels like hers. And then one morning, a veiled woman appears in her yard and says, “Today’s the day.” Nothing more. No threat. No movement. Just a presence — and from that point on, the unease never lifts.

There’s no mystery box here, no overly explained backstory or final-act exposition dump. Instead, what we get is dread, drip-fed through careful silence. The film walks the tightrope between psychological and supernatural horror, and for most of its runtime, it stays balanced. You’re never entirely sure if the haunting is real or just a projection of Ramona’s grief. And that ambiguity is the film’s strongest tool.

What makes it work is how internal the horror feels. It doesn’t chase you down — it waits for you to sit with it. It uses shadow and space the way other films use soundtracks and gore. Director Jaume Collet-Serra seems less interested in scaring you than in unsettling you, keeping you in that suspended state between anxiety and empathy. Every frame feels like a room you’re not supposed to be in.

That said, the film does falter a bit as it tries to tie its threads. There’s a quiet power in not knowing, in letting grief be the monster, but 'The Woman in the Yard' starts to lose that grip as it edges toward resolution. The final scenes don't collapse, but they pull back from the ambiguity too soon. Still, even in its weakest moments, Deadwyler holds it together. Her performance is the film’s anchor — measured, wounded, always on the verge of breaking but never quite doing so.

What stays with you isn’t a twist or a scream, but a feeling. That slow-burning ache of guilt, the quiet fear of what we carry with us when no one else is looking. 'The Woman in the Yard' doesn’t offer catharsis. It doesn’t try to tidy up its grief. It lets it sit there, right outside the window, veiled, waiting. And if you’re willing to sit with it too — not for answers, but for atmosphere — it’s more than worth your time. It’s not a loud film, but it echoes. Quietly, persistently, like something you almost forgot, now suddenly at your door.