The Surrender is a 2025 Canadian supernatural horror film written and directed by Julia Max, starring Colby Minifie and Kate Burton.
Premise
Robert, a family patriarch, is ill and bedridden, and is looked after by his wife Barbara and daughter Megan. After Robert dies, Barbara enlists the help of a mysterious figure to bring Robert back to life by means of an occult ritual.
Cast
Colby Minifie as Megan
Alaina Pollack as Young Megan
Kate Burton as Barbara
Chelsea Alden as Young Barbara
Vaughn Armstrong as Robert
Pete Ploszek as Young Robert
Riley Rose Critchlow as Lacey
Mia Ellis as Nikki
Neil Sandilands as The Man
Release
The Surrender was released in the United States on March 9, 2025 at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 85% of 40 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Extracting a maximum amount of creepy mood from a simple setup while reaching surprising poignancy as a mother-daughter story, The Surrender is a victorious feature debut from writer-director Julia Max." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Simon Abrams, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave the movie 3 stars out of 4, praising the performances and calling it "an eerie and accomplished gut-muncher that also happens to have grief and mother-daughter trauma on its mind." Shaina Weatherhead, writing for Collider, said that the film is "unafraid to take risks" and "ultimately delivers a fraught family drama replete with gag-inducing body horror and a whole lot of blood."