I was off work today, feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to curl up on the couch to rest and watch a movie or two. I came across The Woman in the Yard — a relatively new horror film that came out this year starring Danielle Deadwyler. For me, it was so much more than a horror story; it felt like an unexpected bridge between Afrofuturism and shadow work. It reminded me of how Black Gothic stories, like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, use ancestors and the supernatural to help us face buried grief and generational trauma.

The Woman in the Yard definitely had me on the edge of my couch with sweaty palms and my heart racing from all the suspense and that sense of the unknown you find in ghost or horror films — but it was so much more than your average haunting.

Image source from Knotfest

For me, it taps into Afrikanfuturism — not in the shiny sci-fi way of Black Panther or Nnedi Okorafor’s worlds, but through that deeper aesthetic and philosophical lens that uses the speculative, surreal, and supernatural to reframe Black existence and liberation. The entity in Ramona’s yard mirrors how some Afrofuturist stories use ghosts, shapeshifters, or spirits to embody the psychic residue of history.

That figure feels like Ramona’s actual shadow work — all her grief, guilt, pain, and generational trauma begging to be witnessed. The haunting made me think about how, for us, facing our shadows is how we envision a freer future. The yard feels like a kind of portal — so if Ramona can confront what’s haunting her, maybe her babies won’t inherit those same spirits.

That’s what Afrofuturism means to me — not just sci-fi or outer space, but the courage to reimagine healing and dream beyond our wounds. To find solace in our shadows. To use the supernatural to probe the psychological aftershocks of grief and oppression, pushing Black stories beyond realism — which, to me, is deeply Afrofuturist.

Definitely give the movie a try if you haven’t seen it.