Like the Babadook but with black folks.
So for me if this was a short film and ran to about the forty minute mark I would be giving this a near perfect score. The first act where you meet a supernatural woman in black who is incredibly menacing towards a family in the middle of nowhere, and wherein the threat level is slowly ramped up over time is very good. The second act begins to fall apart as we get more of an idea of who the woman in the yard is, and then the third act which is both nonsensical and reveals the film to be a Babadook clone entirely ruins the whole film.
The woman in the yard,Okwui Okpokwasili, is a compelling monster, and her power set does make for some good scares. However, the filmmakers break the cardinal rule by telling rather than showing and when we learn that she is just a manifestation of the lead’s depression and that a lot of the broader more supernatural things that happen may well be in her head, you just go eh and lose interest. The Babadook which this film clearly wants to be did a similar thing, however, it left the ending ambiguous enough to the effect that you didn’t know if the Babadook was real or not this film spells it out for you.
Overall, a strong first act positions it above average, but then everything else stops it from getting into the good rating tier.
3.5/5
Pros.
The early scares
How they set up the woman in the yard
The lack of jump scares
The setting use
Cons.
When they reveal what the woman is
The ending
The pacing in the end of the second act and start of the third.
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