Jaume Collet-Serra may not regularly come to mind when one thinks of modern A-list directors, but the man’s name probably deserves more respect. From turning mid-budget Liam Neeson thrillers like “The Commuter” into solid hits to directing massive-scale franchise plays like Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” the man has done it all, and often does it well. Collet-Serra cut his teeth in the horror genre, a genre he hasn’t worked in for quite some time — but he’s back.
At long last, Collet-Serra has made his welcome return to horror with Blumhouse’s upcoming “The Woman in the Yard.” I had the good fortune of visiting the set of the film last year, with the production taking place just outside of Athens, Georgia at Athena Studios, a little over an hour outside of Atlanta. Collet-Serra, who previously directed 2005’s “House of Wax” remake and the fan-favorite “Orphan,” appeared to be in his element.
The film centers on Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), a grief-stricken woman who survives a car accident that took the life of her husband (Russell Hornsby). Ramona is injured and left to take care of their 14-year-old son (Peyton Jackson) and six-year-old-daughter (Estella Kahiha) in a rural farmhouse. One day, a woman dressed all black appears in their yard. The woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) edges ever nearer to the house and it quickly becomes clear that her intentions are sinister. Ramona must pull it together to protect her family from this mysterious woman who won’t leave them alone.
“At first, I’m scared because I was like, ‘Oh, s***. This dude’s used to any toy, any long shoot, any of this, any of that,” said producer Stephanie Allain (“Hustle & Flow,” “Dear White People”), speaking about working with Collet-Serra on a smaller production after he went back-to-back on “Jungle Cruise” and “Black Adam” with Dwayne Johnson. “He had spent the last five years in that world, all he wanted was the opposite. The kind of movies that I make, like this — not that much money, not that big a cast — it was just the perfect psychological space that he wanted to be in. He took it really seriously.”
Jaume Collet-Serra went from big-budget blockbusters back to Blumhouse horror
Collet-Serra worked his way up, making low-to-mid-budget horror films like “Orphan,” which was loosely inspired by a true story, to making slightly bigger mid-budget thrillers like “Non-Stop” for several years, as well as the Blake Lively-led shark movie “The Shallows” in 2016. Eventually, his filmmaking grabbed the attention of Disney and The Rock, who tapped him to give the “Pirates of the Caribbean” treatment to another classic theme park attraction, “Jungle Cruise.”
It was a $200 million monster that was, at one point, going to get a sequel despite getting short-changed at the box office due to the pandemic. Still, Johnson liked working with him enough that the wrestler-turned-actor tasked Collet-Serra with finally getting his DC movie “Black Adam” off the ground. Given how long that movie was in development, getting it across the finish line was a major accomplishment. But the movie failed to live up to commercial expectations and was caught in the middle of lots of other nonsense behind the scenes at DC and Warner Bros.
Not only were these two gigantic productions, they both came with unique stressors. As a result, the filmmaker decided it was time to take a step back and helm a lower-budget, original horror film for Blumhouse. We didn’t get to speak with Collet-Serra during the set visit as he was in the midst of a busy final day of production, but everyone we talked to spoke very highly of him, underlining the idea that the director was back in more comfortable territory.
“He’s an artist first and a filmmaker second. An artist, meaning whatever it takes to be creative,” Hornsby said of Collet-Serra. “That’s the kind of person that he is. That’s what I gathered from working with him.” The actor also called him “a maestro” before contrasting what Collet-Serra had been doing versus what he was doing with this film:
“He’s done some big films with big actors and whatnot. I feel, though, that he finds his element more in these genre pictures where we can figure it out together. Where there’s not the machine going.”
Jaume Collet-Serra goes back to his horror roots with The Woman in the Yard
“You would think a director of this caliber would have needs and wants and demands, but he had none,” Allain said of the filmmaker, who was actually still finishing his hit Netflix thriller “Carry-On” while they were in production on “The Woman in the Yard.” She said Collet-Serra was shockingly committed to the film the whole way through. “He would drive himself to the airport after wrap on Friday, get on that plane, which is two hours,” Allain revealed. “It made it really hard to leave. Get on that plane, fly back to L.A., have dinner with his family, work on the movie, come back. He paid for that all himself.”
Speaking of “Carry-On,” that film also served as a bridge between Collet-Serra and this film’s lead, Danielle Deadwyler, who was extremely complimentary of the director. “That’s my guy,” she said. As Allain put it while we were touring the set, sometimes actors and directors have “that thing” — a connection that fosters excellent collaboration.
What I can say from my experience is that the director did, indeed, seem to be in the zone. We got to watch a bit of filming, and on the surface, it was nothing exciting — just a close-up shot of Ramona’s son loading a bullet into the chamber of a rifle. Yet, Collet-Serra did multiple takes, feeling that the shot needed to have a certain energy to it. This shot will probably amount to mere moments of screen time, yet the director understood it’s all important. He was trying to squeeze every ounce out of their relatively limited time and resources.
Despite being at the end of a demanding shoot, the crew seemed happy to be working for Collet-Serra. This is precisely the kind of filmmaker who fits perfectly in the Blumhouse Productions mold. We’re talking about the studio that gave us “The Purge,” “Insidious,” and M. Night Shyamalan’s big comeback film “The Visit,” among so many others, and this is the kind of guy horror fans should be happy to have behind the camera.
“The Woman in the Yard” hits theaters on March 28, 2025.
