“The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow.”
I’M reminded of this line from Cormac McCarthy’s novel All The Pretty Horses while watching the feature debut from Julia Max, a film about a fraught mother-daughter relationship.
New to Shudder, The Surrender sees this charged dynamic put to a terrifying test when the family patriarch dies and the grieving mother hires a mysterious stranger to bring her husband back from the dead. As the bizarre and brutal resurrection spirals out of control, both women must confront their differences as they fight for their lives — and ultimately, for each other.
A dreary family drama with a dark horror movie twist, The Surrender is a captivating study of grief which opens with the ghastly image of a disfigured and grotesque man feeding off the body of another.
From here we are transported into a bedroom in a quiet suburban house where an ageing gentleman named Robert (Vaughn Armstrong) is being nursed by his wife, Barbara (Kate Burton), and daughter, Megan (Colby Minifie). Robert, we learn has been desperately ill for a long time, with his domineering wife controlling every facet of his care, evident from the stifling atmosphere in their dismal home.
This unconventional tale of loss and tragedy, manages to stay well clear of the more formulaic and much-trodden ghostly tropes around sudden death and bereavement, but it’s far from comfortable viewing.
In fact, mother and daughter are allowed very little time to grieve or reconcile their differences before a bearded stranger (Neil Sandilands) arrives to carry out a bizarre ritual to bring Robert back from the dead. An uncomfortable ambience is just about to get all the heavier as the pair are soon rowing over the cost of this disturbing ceremony now enfolding in their grief-stricken nest soon after the death of their beloved.
The final act takes on a twist of Insidious proportions but is let down by a rather flimsy ending, despite a tense and disturbing build-up, that promises way more than it delivers.
(3/5)
