The Surrender

After her father's death from cancer, Megan and her grieving mother Barbara are at odds over how to cope. Barbara has hired a stranger who claims he can bring her husband back, and prepares for a resurrection ritual that soon slips beyond her control, forcing mother and daughter to set aside their differences if they want to survive.

The Surrender is a 2025 drama and horror film written and directed by Julia Max, running 95 minutes and produced through Codependent Films as a Canada-United States co-production. Kate Burton plays Barbara and Colby Minifie plays Megan, with Neil Sandilands as the stranger, Vaughn Armstrong as Robert, Mia Ellis as Nikki and Pete Ploszek as a younger Robert. Mia Chang, Robert J. Ulrich and Ian McDonald produced.

Reception has been mixed. A critics' rating of 6.8 out of 10 from 41 reviews is markedly higher than the audience response: on IMDb the film holds 5.4 out of 10 from around 3,400 votes, and on TMDB it sits at 5.9 out of 10 from 67 votes. The small TMDB sample makes that figure less firm than the larger IMDb tally, so audiences overall have been cooler on the film than reviewers, though neither group has rated it especially highly.