'The Surrender' Review: Grief, Gore, and a Harrowing Mother-Daughter Horror Story
- Dan Bremner
- May 24
- 3 min read
By Dan Bremner - May 24, 2025
“When the family patriarch dies, a grieving mother and daughter risk their lives to perform a brutal resurrection ritual and bring him back from the dead.”
Shudder’s knack for unearthing indie horror gems (Late Night with the Devil, The Rule of Jenny Pen, Azrael, or Stopmotion) strikes again with The Surrender, a tenebrous chamber piece that’s among their strongest offerings. As a horror fan still catching up on Shudder’s bountiful catalogue, I was impressed by writer-director Julia Max’s feature debut, a slow-burn drama that erupts into visceral body-horror and existential dread.
Anchored by two phenomenal leads, Colby Minifie and Kate Burton, it probes grief and fractured family ties with raw honesty before plunging into a third-act nightmare. It’s not flawless, with an abrupt ending that leaves you chewing on ambiguity and a slow-pace, but this is bold, unsettling filmmaking that lingers once it's done.
Grief and Tension in a Claustrophobic Family Drama
The opening half does a fantastic job capturing quiet devastation, capturing the suffocating weight of loss. Megan (Minifie) and Barbara (Burton), a daughter and mother bound by duty and resentment, tend to their dying patriarch, Robert, in a claustrophobic home thick with unspoken regrets. Max, drawing from her own experience caring for a dying stepfather, nails the mundane horror of deathbed vigils, with morphine doses, whispered arguments, and the ticking clock of mortality. It’s not Hereditary’s operatic anguish but a grounded, authentic portrait of two women grappling with a void, their grief palpable and well realised.
Minifie and Burton are electric, their performances a believable back and forth of love and loathing. Minifie’s Megan is a coiled spring, her anxious glances and bitten-back portray a daughter desperate for closure. Burton’s Barbara, a widow teetering between denial and zealotry, channels Carrie-era Piper Laurie with a manic edge, her faith in occult remedies both heart-breaking and unhinged. Their chemistry is one of the film's strongest elements, turning every barbed exchange into a knife’s edge, especially as they clash over Robert’s care and past betrayals. These are meaty, career-best roles that elevate the script’s quieter moments. Having only known Minifie with her long-suffering character on Amazon’s The Boys, I didn't know she had this in here.
As a chamber piece, The Surrender thrives on its confined setting, a single house that feels like a pressure cooker. Max uses tight framing and creaking sound design to mirror the boiling tensions between Megan and Barbara, their disagreements over Robert’s alternative treatments, crystals, human teeth under the bed, igniting like sparks in a tinderbox. The script smartly avoids overexplaining, letting their fractured dynamic and the patriarch’s looming absence drive the stakes. It’s a lean setup, bolstered by uncertain ritualistic dread, but with a sharper focus on a fractured mother-daughter dynamic.
From Slow-Burn Tension to Visceral Horror
The film’s first half simmers, but the second explodes into a grotesque carnival of body-horror. When Barbara hires a mysterious shaman (Neil Sandilands) to resurrect Robert, the ritual unleashes a parade of disgusting, grizzly carnage. The practical effects are a highlight, delivering oozing wounds, pain and wild imagery that make your skin crawl. The wait is worth it, transforming the intimate drama into a visceral descent that’s as thrilling as it is stomach-churning in.
But the horror isn’t just gore, it’s the emotional gut-punch of Megan and Barbara confronting their guilt and love amid the bloodshed. Max keeps the camera unflinching, letting the carnage mirror their unravelling bond, though the shift from grounded drama to all-out horror can feel jarring, like a gear change that doesn’t quite mesh.
The ending, however, is sure to be divisive: abrupt, ambiguous, and ripe for debates. Without spoiling, it leans hard into the unknown, leaving more questions than answers about the ritual’s fallout and the women’s fates. Some will love the open-endedness, a nod to grief’s messy reality; others, like me, might crave a touch more closure after such a harrowing ride. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it keeps The Surrender from the pantheon of Shudder’s all-timers, a bold swing that doesn’t fully stick the landing, but maybe will grow on a rewatch.
Final Verdict: A Gripping Horror Debut with Emotional Depth
The Surrender is a solid debut, a horror-drama that marries authentic grief to unhinged body-horror with two knockout performances at its core. Minifie and Burton carry Max’s vision, a personal, blood-soaked meditation on loss that’s as thought-provoking as it is grotesque. Its abrupt finale stumbles, but the journey is tense, gnarly, and human. Shudder’s indie horror streak continues, and I'm definitely keeping an eye on what Max does next.
The Surrender is now streaming on Shudder
Love slow-burn horror with emotional depth? Check out more of our horror film review on our website Film Focus Online!
