Losing the ones we love is never easy. The five stages of grief do not necessarily have to occur in order, but denial almost always rings true as the first. What would happen to a family so deeply in denial that they convince themselves they can resurrect the recently deceased? Writer/director Julia Max makes her feature film debut with The Surrender, a freaky examination on the lengths people will go to avoid loss. An achingly real performance from lead actress Colby Minifie (The Boys, I’m Thinking of Ending Things) adds an uncanny authenticity to the proceedings. The flavor of horror here may be slow-burn, but the atmosphere and unsettling imagery will linger in the mind long after the credits roll.
The first act of The Surrender devotes time to the painfully slow deterioration of family patriarch, Robert (Vaughn Armstrong). His daughter, Megan (Minifie), and wife, Barbara (Kate Burton), cater to his needs; Barbara specifically seems content to prolong his suffering by allowing only half a dose of morphine to dull his pain. Eventually, Robert passes overnight. In a chilling, darkly humorous sequence, Megan and Barbara together try hard to close the jaw of his gaping mouth. Barbara quietly shuts his eyelids, assuming they have at last put this horrifying chapter behind them. Finally, Robert can rest.
However, Barbara has other plans. She contacts a mysterious, grizzled old man (Neil Sandilands) with a long, scraggly beard in a beaten trenchcoat who will help the family perform an ancient ceremony. Megan only agrees to go along with this insanity as a means to help her mother cope—if not, she could forever blame Megan failing to make an effort. In this dark ritual, the true horror peaks out little by little. Max ratchets up the tension as each task gets more bizarre by the second, eventually culminating in a nightmarish endgame. Along the way, Minifie’s performance takes center stage. Megan’s anguish feels guttural and realistic, her screams a sharp dose of pure terror. Despite appreciating her less showy, more uptight performance in The Boys, it was still a pleasant surprise to see what Minifie can do when given a worthy leading role.
The terrifying imagery and often cryptic storytelling work hand in hand, slowly unraveling an unexplainable scenario. The ritual’s rules are never plainly laid out. In this way, we are on the same page as Megan at all times. Max’s clever script adds another layer to Max’s character by having her revisit key moments in her relationship with her father. Younger versions of the trio of players do not really look anything like their older counterparts, but the narrative becomes believable by way of its clever interpersonal structure. Old Robert also appears to Megan at key moments, acting as her conscious having an open dialogue inside her own head. Creative flourishes such as these are always welcome in a horror space, particularly when it would be easier to revisit tired tropes instead. Any “jump scares” are earned thanks to the slow-building relentlessness of an uncomfortable atmosphere.
An ambiguous ending works off the strength of everything that came before, earning its place amongst ever-growing SXSW’s storied genre history. Was the entire movie a metaphor for the isolating nature of grief, to how we should surrender to it rather than try to stifle or deny its existence? The jury may be out on the exact meaning, and different folks may have different takeaways from the final frame. In this way, The Surrender may turn into a vital talking piece that will hopefully gain distribution legs sooner rather than later. While some of the emotional beats do not hit quite as hard as they could have, Julia Max’s family-driven horror masterclass twists the knife anyway with its unrelenting final act.
The Surrender premiered at 2025’s SXSW Film and TV Festival.
