The Woman in the Yard Ending Explained

The latest Universal Studios and Blumhouse horror collaboration, The Woman in the Yard, is an original story about a widow and mother struggling so intensely with her grief and mental health in the wake of her husband’s death that it manifests into a veiled specter in her front yard. And it’s in theaters now (get tickets here)!

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Jungle Cruise, Orphan) with an original screenplay by Sam Stefanak (Joy Ride), The Woman in the Yard is executive produced and stars Danielle Deadwyler as Ramona, Peyton Jackson as her son Taylor, Estella Kahiha as Annie, and Okwui Okpokwasili as The Woman. 

A complicated tale of depression, fear, and dark thoughts made real, Collet-Serra says in the film’s production notes that The Woman in the Yard is a psychological thriller with an inner emotional tension. “Carl Jung, in his psychoanalytic theory, exposed that we all have a shadow self, a dark side in our unconscious that is always judging us … It knows all of our secrets. If we give power to that side of ourselves, we can end up in a downward spiral where nothing makes sense.”

As such, the director and his cast confront some deeply disturbing impulses that Ramona suffers through until she makes some decisions that can be left for the audience to contemplate as the story comes to a close. 

What happens and what does it all mean? Let’s take a closer look. 

What happens at the end of the The Woman in the Yard?

As The Woman in the Yard unfolds, it becomes more and more clear that Ramona is not only devastated by the death of her husband David (Russell Hornsby) in a car accident, but she’s also harboring shame and guilt because she was at the wheel and about to leave her family because of her deep unhappiness.

An artist by profession, it’s implied that Ramona has a complex relationship with her art and her peace of mind. She was unhappy in the city where they previously resided, so as a family, they made the choice to buy a rural, fixer-upper farm house to remodel, where she could continue to paint in a home studio while they raise their two kids. By the middle act of the film, Taylor makes Ramona admit what really happened the night David died. She tearfully shares that she told David that she was even more unhappy taking care of everyone else in this new home, and that she wanted out of this life. As they drove home from their dinner in tense silence, she looked at David, then her eyes are pulled to the rearview mirror, where she saw the effigy of The Woman. In that moment, the other car appears, causing the crash that David doesn’t survive.

Ramona finally acknowledges that she made The Woman appear the moment she wanted out of her marriage. Then The Woman makes her accept that she appeared again when Ramona prayed for strength that morning getting out of bed. It wasn’t the strength to live that she was asking for, but the strength to let go of the rest of her life, which was making her so desperately unhappy. She knows she’s being a terrible mother, and can’t continue to function that way, and the specter of death is what she’s literally calling for when The Woman appears. 

The Woman plays upon Ramona’s deepest fears of holding back her children’s lives, and instead of letting The Woman do anything to them, she says goodbye to them one last time and tells them to run to the nearest farm for safety. Annie leaves her stuffed penguin with her mom so she won’t be alone. And then Ramona goes to The Woman’s chair and let’s the dark spirit wrap her hands around her husband’s gun and place it under her chin. She sees Annie’s penguin on the ground as she submits into her anguish. In the shadow reflections of the two women, we see The Woman meld into Ramona’s shadow and then the camera goes wide on the farm house from the outside. The wind rustles through the drying laundry and there is no blast sound of a gun. 

Ramona then sees the light of her children’s flashlight. She gets up and goes out to great them. Their previously unnamed property now has a lovely sign that reads: Iris Haven, alluding to Ramona’s favorite flowers they always intended to grow. The mother and her happy children arrive at their beautifully painted front door where the electricity is back on (Ramona hadn’t paid the bill, so they went without for the whole film) and they go inside. The camera slowly pushes into the window of Ramona’s studio room, where on the easel she has a beautiful, near finished self-portrait with a green hued texture implying a sheer veil over her face. And her signature — a crimson colored Ramona — is revealed in the bottom corner, written backwards as if seen in a mirror.

The film then ends where it started, with the disembodied voice David speaking, “I had the most amazing dream…”

If you’re a glass half full kind of person, then you can interpret that ending to be Ramona’s reward for beating The Woman and not succumbing to her darkest thoughts and impulses of suicide. This is now the mirror life where she knows she will continue to have to fight her depression, even if it manifests as The Woman again, but she’ll be prepared. And now she can healthily commit to her children and their growth together in the house. 

If you’re a glass half empty kind of horror fan, then the other equally plausible ending is that The Woman and Ramona became one, and they took their own life. Believing she is the worst threat to her own children and a drain on their potential, Ramona chose the bleak path of killing herself, so her children can bloom into the happy and successful adults The Woman promises they will become without her influence. It is tragic and extremely dark, but stays true to what The Woman has always represented to Ramona, ever since she wished her family was not in her life anymore. 

The Woman in the Yard is exclusively playing in theaters now. Click here to score your tickets!