Written and directed by Julia Max, 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. Starring: Colby Minifie, Kate Burton, Vaughn Armstrong and Neil Sandilands.
A good basis for any horror film is to have characters messing around with things they have no business getting involved with. The balance of life and death is a quintessential choice, it can never end well, and The Surrender really capitalises on that. Firstly, anyone who’s seen Kate Burton in Scandal, or many of her other roles, could tell you that she has such a deep, rich potential for dark cinema. The strong, invasive presence that she has is ridiculously good, creating an intensity and tightly wound atmosphere which is beguiling in the most perfectly uncomfortable way.
Putting her opposite Colby Minifie was a great piece of casting, the two create such a convincing, embattled and broken mother, daughter relationship. The tension between the two of them is delightfully heavy, it’s really what drives a lot of The Surrender. Playing with life and death certainly has its part to play too but that comes later, initially it’s their fractured connection and the mother’s unpredictability which set things on edge. Especially because Julia Max actually manages to build an exploration of their relationship within the horror of the film.
It’s really interesting at one point to even see their preparation for the resurrection turn into a bonding moment and a trip down memory lane, which holds a surprising sincerity. As time passes, The Surrender becomes a look at how children have such a blinkered view of their parents and you take that with you into adulthood, never truly looking at it from your parents’ perspective. There’s a real weight to the emotional side of this story, it’s not simply setting up the horror, it’s an integral part of the story and its meaning.
Stylistically Julia Max does well to service both, she comes in immediately with a note of gore and violence, then lets things build naturally before bringing that through again. The violence strikes bold notes to match the intensity of the story, it’s impactful without being overwhelming. It’s extremely well complimented by the cinematography from Cailin Yatsko which has a great evolution to it, being lighter in the family scenes then having a rich, velvety texture in the sinister scenes. That switch of colours really changes up the intimacy and grasp on reality. The only thing really letting it down is the ending which hits a fairly unresolved note. It strikes a lovely emotional one, but it feels like there are many unanswered questions in the bigger picture.
The Surrender is an impressive debut feature from Julia Max, it may not all be perfectly smooth sailing but the choices which the film is built around are smart, thoughtful and create an interesting genre blend. Especially the way Max creates the foundation within this mother, daughter relationship and it never becomes secondary to the violence, it’s actually given enough time for a real exploration of those memories and feelings. In no small part due to the fantastic performances from Colby Minifie and Kate Burton, who were simply a terrific piece of casting. It maybe doesn’t give quite everything you want but there’s so many strong elements and it showcases how much talent Max has behind the camera, that it’s undeniably very worth watching.
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