The Surrender

Caring for their sick father, a woman and his wife try to make sure they're giving him the best chance at getting better which soon starts to take a toll on them both when he passes away and they begin a ritual to bring him back, leading them to a supernatural route they can't return from.

This was a troublesome and somewhat difficult genre effort. When this one works is based almost entirely around the final half, where the ritual is performed and the couple heads off into the other realm to continue their quest. The exploits of the specific ritual and how they're to follow the set of instructions as they do makes for a solid starting point already so that when they realize that part of the process is to go to the other side and retrieve the soul of their father to bring back with them provide not only a great series of visually-impressive tactics and rituals, but also getting off enough storyline motivations for the chilling storyline revelations. The scenes in the other realm, especially involving the naked figures shown suffering the deformed influence of the demonic figures controlling the dimension, create a series of encounters and emotional resolutions that make for a fun enough time here as this one goes along. There are some problems with this one keeping it down, though. The main aspect of this one tends to revolve around the continued usage and pronounced exploration of generational trauma and grieving between family members, which is inherently clichéd and just bland to sit through. The idea of going through the process of looking into the family history of their dead patriarch and trying to reconcile who he was and what their relationships with him were like carries on from the very beginning with the strained relationships at play between the two women who are there to help treat him at the time he needs it the most. This makes for a quite bland time here waiting around for this one to try offering up the kind of strained and fractured scenes bringing their emotions to the surface, the longer they stay there to perform the ritual, so everything here becomes a struggle to get invested in their emotionally draining quarrels. The other problem here is the bizarre series of general, troublesome motivations for how everything is supposed to go down. The initial setup of the family relationship being strained between the two women is enough to help us overlook how the whole turn to the spiritual goes from no build-up into the supernatural. This drops the mothers' descent into the mystical with rampant usage of occult practices and trinkets almost immediately, which is supposed to represent how little they know about each other, but comes off with little build-up or suspense. That carries on with why they need to carry out the process of bringing him back to life from the dead realm for no point, and that leaves everything with so little information that there are some problematic features with this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.

But there's something about Julie Max's first direct debut "The Surrender" that delves deeper into the darker sides of the human psyche, exploring the different impacts of what it's like for two people to experience a void from the same common denominator. In reality, you could look at this film is contained for its benefit. It's confined to a couple of indoor spaces with four characters. At the most annoying fracture is a mother/daughter relationship. How many times did the daughter called her (mom)? The entire film? Is very annoying, get this the ending of the movie will feel like it needs about 10 more minutes of the story and unfortunately 91 minutes without the credits went by fast. So I am rating this a 5.6/10 because the first time director should give massive credit to her work she'd accomplish.

Sometimes a movie night throws you a curveball, and this was one of those times. The crew-Willow, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow-went in completely blind for The Surrender, thinking we were just in for another spooky horror ride. The only thing we knew? It had something to do with a ritual. Sounded promising, right? Well, it was... sort of.

The idea behind the film is honestly pretty captivating: a family ritual where you're asked to "surrender" to something beyond life-spiritual, emotional, and frighteningly real. That was enough to get all of us hooked early on. But when the movie dives deeper into this ritual, especially surrounding the death of the father, it starts raising the question: why not just let the man rest in peace? Still, we knew if that happened, there'd be no movie.

Things escalate fast when the supernatural elements kick in. It is a scary movie-no doubt about it. Tails literally tapped out mid-way through when the intensity cranked up (no spoilers, but it got wild). Willow, Knuckles, and Shadow were vibing with the thrills, but both Knuckles and Shadow called out the main character for being kind of weak in those monster scenes. They joked she could've taken them down with half the effort if she actually tried. Classic.

Amy, on the other hand, got pulled in deep once the ritual scenes started going dark. Like, real dark. She was tense throughout-especially when the blood came into play-and said the ritual arc was easily her favorite part, even if it creeped her out. Honestly, same.

But here's where the movie kind of lost all of us: the pacing and the emotional drama. There's a lot of back-and-forth between the two main characters, and while we get it's meant to show grief and trauma, it felt repetitive and dragged out. The emotional weight just didn't land like it should have. The story kind of stumbled in building the supernatural world, too-like, the ritual was cool, but why it happened and what it really meant? That part was foggy and undercooked.

By the time it wrapped up, we all agreed it was fun to experience together, especially in the dark with the volume up. It had moments-definitely creepy, visually strong at times-but as a full package, it didn't live up to what the concept deserved.

Final score from the crew: 4/10. Cool idea, scary at parts, but not quite the horror gem we hoped for.

"The Surrender" is a supernatural folklore-horror that centres on a mother-daughter conflict.

Despite its promising premise-a meditation on death, grief, and the unbearable pain of loss-the story never quite fulfils its potential.

The writer-director Julia Max's feature debut reveals a striking eye for visuals and atmosphere. Her aesthetic choices are superb, especially in the film's last moments, where grief tension simmer beneath the surface.

However, when the narrative shifts from family drama to occult ritual, coherence begins to falter. The film descends into a kind of beautiful nonsense, evoking echoes of Hereditary, Talk to Me, A Dark Song, The Babadook, and, more recently, The Shrouds.

Max draws layered performances from her leads. Megan (Colby Minifie) and Barbara (Kate Burton) are emotionally distinct and compelling.

Barbara is cold and resolute in her quest to resurrect her husband Robert (Vaughn Armstrong) after a tormented illness, while Megan wrestles with doubt, torn between empathy and skepticism, burdened by the ongoing pain of watching her father suffer.

The core idea is clear, and there's real potential for emotional impact in its exploration of the truths we're most reluctant to face.

The narrative gaps and tonal inconsistencies are too evident to ignore. The film digs into deep themes but struggles to land with clarity and keep viewers engaged.

There are moments worth honoring, such as how the film plays intriguingly with trauma, hope, and monstrosity-blending psychological horror with gore and body horror elements.

It stirs something compelling, even if the final result feels more like an atmospheric sketch than a fully realised vision.

"The Surrender" doesn't over-explain itself-a refreshing choice in a genre often burdened by exposition. Yet at times, it veers too far into the cryptic, resembling a literal descent into a hellish purgatory, leaving the audience more adrift than intrigued.

Is it a bad film? Absolutely not. It's flawed, but not without merit. Flawed but worthwhile, especially for fans of visually rich, boundary-pushing indie horror.

While "The Surrender" doesn't quite stick the landing, Max's bold vision and confident aesthetic suggest she's a filmmaker to watch.

Horror needs voices like hers-unsettling, ambitious, and willing to take risks.

"The Surrender" was not a movie that I was familiar with prior to sitting down and watching it here in 2025. So I didn't know what I was in for, aside from it being a supernatural horror movie. And given my lov of all things horror, of course I had to check it out and give it a fair chance.

The storyline, while there was potential, proved dull and uneventful. And when things actually started to happen, the movie abruptly ended. So I can't claim that writer Julia Max, whom also directed the movie, delivered a particularly entertaining or enjoyable script for the movie.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, aside from leading actresses Colby Minifie and Kate Burton. The acting performances in the movie were fair, despite the fact that the script proved to be a dud.

There was an excessive amount of screaming, crying, and calling out for dad throughout the course of the movie, almost to the point where it was too much and started to ruin the movie.

The effects in the movie were okay, but there wasn't an abundance of special effects to be enjoyed.

"The Surrender" was a strange movie, and it didn't particularly entertain me all that much. I actually dozed off twice along the way, as the narrative was a swing and a miss. It was more of a mother/daughter drama than it was a horror movie. If you sit down to watch "The Surrender" with the hopes of a horror movie, like I did, you'll be sorely disappointed.

This is definitely not a movie that will grace my screen a second time, as it was a struggle to watch it the first time around.

My rating of writer and director Julia Max's 2025 movie "The Surrender" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars.