Find Comfort and Terror Through Grief in The Surrender (SXSW)
Title: The Surrender
First Non-Festival Release: May 23, 2025 (Digital/Streaming Platforms)
Director: Julia Max
Writer: Julia Max
Runtime: 90 Minutes
Starring: Colby Minifie, Kate Burton, Vaughn Armstrong
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
This film’s review was written after its screening at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2025.
They say that the worst things can be brought out of the best people when confronted with death, but what if these qualities were always hiding beneath the surface? Do these moments of weakness define a person, or can we exist in a limbo where actions can have multiple meanings? As all humans are flawed creatures, The Surrender seeks to understand these contradictions through the death of a family patriarch.
Megan (Colby Minifie) and her mother Barbara (Kate Burton) find themselves in different stages of grief when father/husband Robert (Vaughn Amstrong) dies leaving the duo reeling. Accepting her father’s death, Megan struggles with her mother’s stubborn refusal to admit defeat for her various spiritual remedies. Right as she plans to bring up her father’s financial wishes to her mother, she admits to hiring a man (Neil Sandilands) for a Hail Mary effort: resurrecting Robert.
Creepy yet generic, The Surrender works because of its startling imagery and strong performances.
A familiar story of mother-daughter relationships and the grief of losing a loved one, The Surrender dives into the messier parts of these experiences. It might seem easy to disregard the more alternative measures that Barbara takes to save Robert, but The Surrender challenges viewers on the benefits and harms of holding on to loved ones after death. Megan and Barbara represent two opposites in their journey of navigating grief, and the ritual serves as their bridge to understanding the other or trying their best to do so. This push and pull is the main event here, with the supernatural terror operating as the vehicle used to apply pressure to their more personal fears, regrets, and mistakes.
Its whirlwind pacing gives neither the characters nor the audiences time to breathe as Megan continues to accept whatever terrifying reality her mother pushes onto her. This works in favor of The Surrender as it mimics the maelstrom of emotions that overwhelm after the death of a loved one. Megan’s initial reluctance to participate gradually evolves to terror when confronted with what they must do to bring him back. Once it’s too late to stop, Megan realizes she must confront her family’s fractured parts for a hope of piecing what’s left back together.
Each step of the way, Barbara’s unwillingness to listen to reason pushes Megan to be there for her in the face of uncertainty and fear. It’s an interesting dynamic, one where neither fully trusts the other. Megan doesn’t want her mother’s heart broken if it fails as well as the immediate financial and possible physical consequences of the ritual. Barbara, on the other hand, resents Megan’s acceptance as giving up and her insistence of using her father’s money for her non-profit as selfish. Colby Minifie and Kate Burton do great work in making these nuanced emotions feel genuine, even when the writing works against them.
While Megan and Barbara make for interesting, complicated characters in their own right, their relationship between each other is where The Surrender gets troubling. Throughout The Surrender, Megan and Barbara’s relationship pivots from loving to contentious to cold back to loving in service to what is needed to progress the story. It doesn’t flow naturally, which makes some of the more emotional aspects feel unearned. Sure, people rarely act consistently even in the calmest of times, but the erratic nature of Barbara’s unpredictable reactions make it feel unearned.
What sets The Surrender apart from other supernatural horror films is its striking imagery and the world-building of its rituals, which is achieved without too many exposition dumps. Aside from a few glimpses into the paranormal, the first half of The Surrender leans into the human drama behind its story. Once the trio enter the supernatural realm, The Surrender picks up quite quickly. Stripped down to their ritual circle in a dark void, writer/director Julia Max makes the most of the limited space by using imaginative tactics to keep the action dynamic while the actors stay transfixed in horror within its diameter.
It doesn’t quite stick the landing, but as another exploration of grief, The Surrender is solid supernatural affair worthy of praise. Grief horror may be over saturating the market, but this entry adds just enough to make the familiarity worth it. Debuting on Shudder later this Spring, The Surrender is worth giving up an evening for.
Overall Score? 6/10
