Time: 96 Minutes
Cast:
Colby Minifie as Megan
Kate Burton as Barbara
Director: Julia Max

The main thing I knew about The Surrender was that it was a horror movie starring Colby Minifie which was released on Shudder, and it turned out to be just fine.

Within the first 5-10 minutes, you quickly pick up that The Surrender is another horror movie about grief; it’s a sombre film about mourning and is largely a family drama about letting go for a good portion of it. It can feel quite sluggish for the first half of the movie, but it needed that first half to steadily establish everything and setting up the stakes between the mother and daughter characters so it can pay things off in the second half. While I admire the commitment to having some emotional grounding, the characters didn’t resonate with me, and so it wasn’t as hard hitting for me as perhaps it was intended to be. The second half is when it starts adding in the horror aspects, especially in the third act. It was certainly more active and entertaining, but it also fell into familiar territory. I also wasn’t satisfied with the abrupt ending.

Colby Minifie and Kate Burton deliver great performances that help to carry the film. Minifie is particularly amazing and really sells a lot of the hard hitting emotion.

This is a solid directorial debut from Julia Max. It’s well shot, atmospheric, makes effective use of darkness and has some really good practical effects and makeup. 

The Surrender is a slow, familiar and messy, but decent and well directed horror movie, with good performances from Colby Minifie and Kate Burton.