Acres upon acres of land sit empty in the distance.
Those chilling few seconds of footage set the tone for the tour.
The why of this project stems from the longstanding relationship Allain has with Blumhouse mastermind Jason Blum.
It makes my job so much easier when all the departments are firing at the highest level.
I dont do horror.
I dont do slashers.
(from left) Taylor (Peyton Jackson), Annie (Estella Kahiha) and Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) in The Woman in the Yard, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
I dont do violence against women.
My [production company] is about dispelling stereotypes that have been tropes sinceBirth of a Nation.
She quickly diverts our attention instead to a behind-the-scenes tour.
We stopped in a spooky farmhouse attic.
We noticed the artwork around the farmhouse set.
It turned out that Deadwyler, the films lead, was also the artist of these pieces.
And then we kind of just flowed with it.
Sometimes things come to just congruence, Deadwyler says.
Its her second collaboration with Collet-Serra after essentially working back to back following Netflixs Christmas actionerCarry-Onlast year.
I trust [Collet-Serra].
He knows what I could do.
I call him the master of the dark, Deadwyler says.
He gets happy and joyous about the most difficult things.
Weve got a rapport at this point.
Thats cool and its beautiful to play with it, she adds.
Its a different kind of motherhood story, a different kind of family story, she says.
Those are things that I think we inherently know.
I have a child whos a teenager, the same age as [Peytons character].
That work has been with me for years.
I know this fully already.
Its just tapping into this grief-driven aspect of it.
It made it much more visceral.
Shes very much like myself.
Shes a bit of a mystery, Okpokwasili says with a sinister laugh of her character.
I cant tell you anything!
Eventually Okpokwasili cryptically teases, Shes where shes supposed to be.
What is the extreme of grief, right?
And this woman has none of that.
And so that was very compelling to me.
People are always talking about Black women and how they are so strong.
They have the weight of the world on their shoulders and they can persevere through anything.
This movie undoes that stereotype.
[Ramona] is a real person with some heavy shit going on.
Shes very vulnerable and naked and trying to carry all that weight.
Allain might not have been seeking out a chance to produce alongside Blumhouse or enter the horror space.
