Is The Woman in the Yard Based on a True Story?

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, ‘The Woman in the Yard‘ follows Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), a single mother who survives a car accident that kills her husband, David (Russell Hornsby). Struggling with grief, she brings up her children, Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha), in a rural farmhouse. However, trouble returns to her life in the form of a mysterious woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) shrouded in black. She appears out of the blue on the front lawn with an ominous warning of “today’s the day” and no other explanation.

While the family initially assumes that the stranger is lost or demented, she slowly moves nearer the house, hinting at sinister intentions. Ramona and her children barricade themselves inside for safety, as the woman shows no sign of leaving them alone. The psychological horror film moves away from formulaic jumpscare and develops on the fear of a foreseeable yet unknown and impending danger.

The Woman in the Yard is Depression Personified

Sam Stefanak debuted as a feature film screenwriter with the fictional narrative of ‘The Woman in the Yard.’ In an interview with Filmmaker, he opened up about channeling his own demons into the writing process to come up with the initial draft for the film. While Sam started his career as a writer for comedy shows on Netflix, such as ‘F is for Family,’ the idea of a stranger sitting in the yard had long stayed in his head. It was initially a man who sat in a chair, wearing a large, wide-brimmed hat. “Whatever this image was, I knew it was something sinister. I could feel that,” he shared. “I guess I was imagining Reverend Kane, the villain from Poltergeist 2, to be quite honest.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, Sam found himself locked in his home like the rest of the world and battling depression. However, this time he decided to tackle the dark thoughts head-on. He conjured the character of a woman whom he sent to the yard to find out more about the stranger, who he was, what he wanted, and what could be done to make him go away. Typing away with his laptop, he soon had a scene between a woman and a man, and named it ‘The Man in the Yard.’ Sam came up with the rest of the story organically, unsure of its purpose.

At one point in the process, Sam realized he needed motivation for his villain. “That’s when it hit me that I was seeing this image because my brain was taking my suicidal depression and giving it a character to embody as a way to deal with my depression,” he said, explaining that his gender identity influenced that of the character. However, when the script was sold and the project was in development, it was pointed out to him that the protagonist, Ramona, identifies as a woman, and the character embodying her guilt and depression should be representative of the fact. The script went through some major rework, and ‘The Woman in the Yard’ finally took shape.

A Product of Collective Experiences of Struggling With Mental Health

The transformation of the original ‘The Man in the Yard’ script to ‘The Woman in the Yard’ took place with contributions from the cast and the crew, most notably director Jaume Collet-Serra, lead actress Danielle Deadwyler, and producer Stephanie Allain. “Everybody involved in The Woman in the Yard brought a lot of their lived experiences with the subject matter,” shared writer Sam Stefanak about the development of the script. “We ended up with a product of so many different people’s experiences with depression, with mental health. All those people really helped breathe authenticity into the story that made it to screen.”

The script was redeveloped over Zoom sessions, where Danielle and Stephanie shared their experiences as Black women and mothers to breathe life into the narrative and make it seem authentic. The psychological threat of ‘The Women in the Yard’ stemmed from mental health issues that plagued everybody, including trauma, anxiety, and PTSD. At the beginning of the movie, Danielle’s character Ramona is involved in a car crash that kills her husband. Sam initially envisioned the scene to be a result of Ramona drinking and driving, drawing from his own experience with alcoholism.

The Woman in the Yard Taps Into Post-Pandemic Anxieties

When the black-clad entity shows up in front of her farmhouse, Ramona and her children, Taylor and Annie, are not sure of her intentions. As such, they choose to barricade themselves inside the house for protection. The plot of ‘The Woman in the Yard’ thus brings up memories of the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021, where people uncertain of their future across the globe were forced to stay inside as countries went into lockdown mode.

“We’re dealing with depression, we’re dealing with guilt, we’re dealing with suicidal ideation,” producer Stephanie Allain told SYFY. “We’re dealing with things that I think so many people post-pandemic are (thinking). Our kids are struggling. There’s a lot of anxiety in the world right now. And I think this movie really captures what that’s like for this one family.” She credited the director, Jaume Collet-Serra, for elevating the film from a regular monster film to an exploration of the darkness within human minds. Thus, the fictional story of ‘The Woman in the Yard’ is deeply inspired by the everyday realities individuals face.