The Surrender

by Hope Madden

At one point in writer/director Julia Max’s feature debut The Surrender, Barbara (the always reliable Kate Burton) tells her daughter, Megan (Colby Minifie), that their grief over the death of the family patriarch is not the same. After 40 years together, Barbara says, “I don’t know who I am without him.”

That’s really the heart of the horror film that sees a bereaved mother and daughter transgress the laws of nature to bring their beloved husband/father back from the dead.

Max uses horror tropes to play nimbly with the dishonesty of memory and the ugliness of reality. What The Surrender unveils is that mother and daughter do not know who they are as a family without Robert (Vaughn Armstrong); they don’t recognize the other without the third wheel for balance.

As a character study and a glimpse into family politics, particularly during the tailspin of grief, The Surrender is beautifully, authentically written. Every inexplicable grace Barbara has granted Stephen during their decades is somehow unavailable to her daughter, who, in turn, forgives and forgets conveniently when it comes to her father. But Megan’s less forgiving of her mom.

And so, the two grasp desperately to regain balance and relieve their panic and grief, which is where the horror comes in. Max returns to the exquisitely horrific image that opens the film once Megan and Barbara, aided by “the man” (Neil Sandilands, compellingly understated), go in search of Stephen.

Max’s image of the other realm is as imaginative as it is stark. There’s a bleak beauty to it all that recalls Liam Gavin’s genre masterpiece, A Dark Song. The Surrender never reaches those heights, but Max knows how to ground the supernatural in relatable reality and wonders which is worse.