The Woman in The Yard Writer Sam Stefanak Talks Film’s Ending

The great thing about ambiguous movie endings is that they keep audience discussion alive long after the credits have rolled. Would we still be talking about John Carpenter’s The Thing or Christopher Nolan’s Inception to this day had they not closed out on enigmatic notes and invited endless speculation on the part of fans? Probably not!

The same rings true for The Woman in the Yard, the latest horror collaboration between Universal Pictures and Blumhouse (see it in theaters or watch at home now). A quick trip over to Reddit will show you that viewers are very much split on the film’s conclusion, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Did Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) manage to conquer her suicidal thoughts — as represented by the titular woman played by Okwui Okpokwasili — or did she go through with taking her own life? That final image of her name painted backwards could be read in a number of different ways, though the project’s screenwriter, first-time feature scribe Sam Stefanak, prefers to look at it through a lens of optimism.

The Woman in the Yard writer Sam Stefanak sounds off on the movie’s mysterious ending

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“My original drafts, I’ll admit, are not as ambiguous; they are very clear about overcoming depression and your mental health struggles,” the writer said during an interview with Filmmaker magazine. ‘This version … gives people either that frustration or joy. I do have my opinion on what happened — not that it’s correct or anything, but when I see the finished product, I find hope. I see somebody overcoming their depression, because that’s what happened to me when I was dealing with suicidal depression: I got ahold of it and made the first draft of the script. That was my painting. So, seeing that completed art piece, I know that Ramona did the same, because that’s my experience as well. Any creative person can see those breadcrumbs to say, ‘She got her strength back, and she used it for inspiration.’”

Stefanak went on to reveal that it was director Jaume Collet-Serra (known for such horror fare as House of Wax, Orphan and The Shallows) who insisted on keeping things more open-ended.

“Jaume wanted that uncomfortable ambiguity to be present in the ending, and it has been really interesting to see,” the writer continued. “Two people in the same exact screening, sitting right next to each other, can come away with their own interpretation, and that is important for this story … To Jaume’s credit, he gave enough breadcrumbs to every side people wanted to feel. At one point, I did try to encourage [Jaume] to make it a little less ambiguous, and he was like, ‘No, I think we want to make our audience frustrated. We want to make our audience argue. Audiences think they want answers, but they don’t. They want more questions.’”