The Surrender (2025) review – A weak version of A Dark Song
The Surrender: Quick Verdict
The Verdict: Another “elevated” horror that forgets to be scary. The Surrender is a polished but painfully derivative drama about grief and occult rituals. While it looks good and features a capable director, it is bogged down by stilted dialogue, clichéd scares, and a story we have seen told far better in movies like A Dark Song. It is a metaphor-heavy slog that feels more like a therapy session than a horror movie.
Details: Director: Julia Max | Cast: Colby Minifie, Kate Burton | Runtime: 1h 32m | Release Date: 2025
Best for: Fans of slow-burn family dramas and people who think A Dark Song needed more arguing and fewer scares.
Worth noting: This is a Shudder Original, so expect the usual level of polish but perhaps a lack of bite.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Shudder.
Rating: 2.5/5 Stars
(Derivative, slow, melodramatic)
Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are reviewing Shudder Original The Surrender by director Julia Max.
Table of Contents
It’s yet another trauma horror movie
This is another one of those metaphorical horror movies that I am getting so tired of. Expect a supernatural horror plot that is actually a metaphor for confronting grief and familial bullshit. Can we get an actual horror movie with some real monsters, spooks, or supernatural stuff, please?
On the plus side, at least The Surrender does offer up some fairly interesting depictions of occult practices. The story is pretty simple. When the family’s patriarch becomes terminally ill. His wife, unable to cope with the impending loss, begins to set the wheels in motion for a resurrection ritual. Along the way, incurring the scorn of her unwilling, and unbelieving, daughter.
“Can we get an actual horror movie with some real monsters, spooks, or supernatural stuff, please?”
We have the whole horror-drama trifecta here. We’ve got feuding family members; we’ve got a mother unable to cope with losing her husband; and we have long hidden familial trauma that kind of makes you question the logic behind the entire plot in the first place. Well, outside of being a clumsy metaphor for the cycle of abuse that is.
Critics love this one, fans not so much
The Surrender features a menagerie of traits that get horror movie critics feeling all tingly in their pants. We have a female director (great to see, we need more women directing horror), we have a lead actor looking rather dishevelled and very atypical of a horror lead, tons of familial drama ala Hereditary, and a “layered” story.
This is “elevated horror” and reviewers are obsessed with it. Me? Not so much. The general horror viewing public? They aren’t all that enthusiastic, either.
Let’s get the positives out of the way, first. For a feature length debut, Max does a pretty nice job with the technical aspect. Shot setups and cinematography are absolutely fine, for the most part. There’s nothing all that original and the movie is replete with imagery that has been done to death, but the film looks crisp and sharp. It certainly seems like it was afforded a decent budget.
A serviceable yet incredibly familiar story
The Surrender’s story is fine but it isn’t going to appeal to all horror fans. It’s a tale of grief and familial trauma set against a backdrop of occultist practice. It is very reminiscent of the excellent Welsh/Irish film A Dark Song or the far inferior From Black. The Surrender is just weighted a little more towards the familial stuff as our mother and daughter combo have some unaddressed issues to deal with.
“It is very reminiscent of the excellent Welsh/Irish film A Dark Song or the far inferior From Black.”
There are some stand out moments that juxtapose the way the daughter perceived her parents growing up versus the reality of the situation. These take place via flashbacks and are definite highlights of the narrative. Unfortunately, they eventually serve to completely undermine the prevailing plot thanks to some clumsy storytelling. It feels a bit baffling from a writing standpoint.
The occultist ritual practice is scattered throughout but comes on full force later in the movie. There are a few creepy moments during the ritual that really do work quite well but it feels a bit too little and a bit too late. There’s a lot of redundant drama before you get there. I imagine The Surrender will have already lost a lot of viewers by this point.
Some of the dialogue is woeful
Colby Minifie and Kate Burton have a mix strong moments of performance and weak moments. I feel like they suffer for some very poorly written dialogue that makes their interactions seem a bit unnatural and stilted. Both have a tendency to ham it up but it’s nothing too distracting. Generally speaking, they are fine.
“The final scenes made me laugh. I sort of imagined the writer shedding a tear… somehow not realising that it was all just a little bit cheesy.”
The familial drama stuff is extremely dull and suffers for the need to introduce scares. This would be a much stronger story if it played out while not wearing a horror movie mask. It’s far too familiar, extremely unoriginal, and nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is. This becomes especially noteworthy later on where the movie starts tying itself in knots for the sake of being “different” and “scary”.
The ritual itself, is pretty awful. The “spooky” guy who shows up to conduct the ceremony it is laughably cliched. Numerous events occur during the ritual that, again, undermine the entire reasoning behind the daughter staying involved. There are a couple of scenes designed purely for shock value and they feel predictable and underwhelming.
The later stages are just a bit silly. Horror vets are going to find some of it ruthlessly projected and the rest just a bit messy and ridiculous. The final scenes made me laugh. I sort of imagined the writer shedding a tear and thinking “That was beautiful” while jotting it down. Somehow not realising that it was all just a little bit cheesy.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
The Good
- The Direction: Julia Max shows promise in her feature debut. The film looks sharp, well-lit, and professionally assembled.
- The Occultism: When the film actually focuses on the ritual, there are a few genuinely creepy moments.
The Bad
- The Dialogue: It is clunky and unnatural, forcing talented actors to ham it up just to make the lines work.
- The Originality: We have seen this “grief ritual” story a dozen times before, and usually done better.
- The Tone: It takes itself far too seriously, resulting in an ending that is unintentionally funny rather than moving.
The Ugly: The “Elevated” Trope. This is yet another horror movie that seems embarrassed to be a horror movie, hiding behind heavy-handed metaphors for trauma.
Should You Watch The Surrender?
If you are desperate for a supernatural drama and have exhausted all other options on Shudder, maybe. But for most horror fans, The Surrender will be a tedious exercise in déjà vu. It is a well-made but hollow film that offers nothing new to the genre.
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