Is ‘The Woman In The Yard’ Worth A $20 Rental? Our Horror Expert Weighs In

The Woman In the Yard hit streaming April 15th, less than three weeks after its wide release in theaters.

It’s currently available for digital rental and purchase on platforms including Amazon Prime Video. But with a $19.99 premium VOD rental price, is it worth your money?

What Is The Woman In The Yard About?

The Woman in the Yard is the latest horror movie produced by Blumhouse and distributed by Universal. It’s about a widowed woman, Ramona, and her two children, Taylor and Annie, who live in a secluded house. Ramona is dealing with a leg injury caused by the car accident that killed her husband, but even worse is the mental anguish she is going through.

The film takes place over the course of a day and into the night. In the morning, the family sees a woman sitting in a chair in their yard. Her face and body are covered in black cloth, and she speaks cryptically, saying, “today’s the day.” Throughout the day, the woman gets closer to the house. At the same time, Ramona’s mental stability deteriorates. Caught in-between are Taylor and Annie who are each suffering from grief in their own ways. It all leads to a twist-filled finale filled with supernatural and psychological horrors.

My Thoughts on The Woman In The Yard

I mostly enjoyed The Woman in the Yard, though I enjoyed the first half much more than the second half. There are many wonderfully creepy moments throughout the time when Ramona and her kids are trying to figure out how to deal with this unusual woman who won’t leave their go away. The setup is believable, and the hints that Ramona knows more than she’s saying are enough for viewers to buy the fact nobody goes to get help, or that they don’t just force the woman to leave (though that is brought up).

The psychologically-tinged family drama is also well done. Danielle Deadwyler and Peyton Jackson are excellent in their clashing roles as mother and son. Their characters both come across as real people struggling with complex emotions. I’m particularly impressed with the writing of Taylor’s character and his portrayal by Peyton Jackson. Teenage characters can be difficult to get right, but The Woman in the Yard manages to make Taylor utterly sympathetic and interesting.

My less enthusiastic thoughts are all about the later parts of the film. When we start to learn more about who the woman is and why she’s there, the psychological-horror side of the story takes over almost completely. The big reveal about the woman feels obvious, but the movie still explicitly explains it to the audience in a heavy-handed way. I prefer movies with a little more subtlety and room for interpretation.

Also, the scenes building up to the finale are convoluted. I understand what’s was going on, but the story twists itself in ways that might make you think too hard about what is really happening in the moment, which can take away from the story’s emotional impact. If you’re thinking too hard about the plot’s logical construction, you’re not feeling what the characters are going through. At least, not as much as you could be.

That said, the final scene is smartly done. After the twisty, psychological journey to get there, the ending is a gut punch that can be interpreted in different ways. I like a dark ending, and that’s the interpretation I took from it. From beginning to end though, I’m slightly above 50/50 for The Woman in the Yard. My star rating is 3 out of 5. But what do other people think?

What Are The Scores?

A quick perusal of the major review aggregators paints a very mixed picture. Rotten Tomatoes has only 43% and 47% from critics and viewers respectively. Metacritic sits at 51 out of 100 for critics, and 4.9 out of 10 for users. IMDB has the best score at 5.5 out of ten, but even that is extremely average.

To give these numbers a bit of context, a 43% Rotten score from critics puts it within five percentage points of other Blumhouse films including Black Christmas (2019), The Purge (2013), Halloween Ends (2022), and Dashcam (2022). Audience scores are slightly further away, with The Woman in the Yard topping most of those films for viewers by more than ten points. The exception is Halloween Ends which, strangely, has the highest audience score of the bunch—including The Woman in the Yard—by far.

Take from this what you will. You shouldn’t let review scores sway your viewing habits, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have The Woman in the Yard sitting near those four other Blumhouse movies. In terms of quality, I can see why these are lumped together, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it in a couple of those specific cases.

Final Recommendation

The rental price tag of $19.99 isn’t unusual for new movies from bigger studios, but I can’t really recommend twenty dollars for a digital rental. Of course, I have a hard time recommending that much for the rental of any movie.

My recommendation is this; The Woman in the Yard is still playing in theaters across North America. If you can get out to a theater, go see it for a matinee price. The quiet creepiness of the earlier scenes are better felt that way. With it hitting streaming already, and with so many new movies coming out, The Woman in the Yard probably won’t be in theaters for much longer, so check for times sooner rather than later.

If you can’t make it to a theater, I’d wait to watch it on streaming until the rental prices drop or it eventually lands on Peacock (there is no date for that yet). Most new movies from major distributors drop to $6.99 for a VOD rental anywhere from a month to a few months after its streaming release date. The Woman in the Yard isn’t a must-see movie right now, so the wait isn’t too bad.

But, if you want to ignore my advice, I don’t mind. The Woman in the Yard is now available on Amazon Prime Video, $19.99 for a digital rental and $24.99 for a digital purchase. The Blu-ray release is also listed on Amazon. The Blu-ray pre-release price is $22.99 $27.99 (it was initially marked down), and it is scheduled to come out on May 27th.