Inside THE SURRENDER: Julia Max, Kate Burton & Colby Minifie on Grief and Resurrection
- creepykingdom
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
By Shannon McGrew
In THE SURRENDER, from director Julia Max, a fraught mother-daughter relationship is 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 for each other.
For the release of THE SURRENDER, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with writer/director Julia Max, and actors Colby Minifie (“Megan”) and Kate Burton (“Barbara”), who take on the emotionally charged roles of a daughter and mother confronting long-buried truths. During the chat, they discussed everything from grounding horror in personal grief to building authentic chemistry on set and the unexpected joy of working on such a dark and emotionally complex film.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Having lost a parent before, the film hit me right in the heart. Julia, can you discuss the influence on the story and how you approached balancing the themes of grief and loss with the supernatural elements?
Julia Max: This was all loosely inspired by what my mother and I went through when my stepfather passed away. Thankfully, my mom did not go so far as to try to resurrect him [Laughs]. It’s so hard losing a loved one. I think the best way to examine these weightier subject matters is through the horror scope because it allows you to have some distance from it so you can add the way you’re feeling in a more visual, spooky way as opposed to having a straight drama which would feel very heavy handed and would be, I think, far more difficult to watch.
Kate and Colby, as mother and daughter, your characters are often at odds, yet their relationship is tethered by love and shared grief. How did the two of you collaborate to develop and convey that emotional complexity?
Colby Minifie: We had five blissful days of rehearsals, which for theater nerds is heaven on earth. The writing was so good that we were able to pick apart, dive in, ask a bunch of questions, and fully commit very easily. The beautiful thing about this movie is that it's a family drama first, and we can go so far in the horror direction because it’s grounded in reality and something that everybody has to go through at some point in their lives. Also, Kate Burton is a dream and a half, and working with her was a total dream come true, especially since it was essentially a two-hander between us.
Kate Burton: It was a dream working with Ms Colby Minifie and Ms Julia Max. The experience of making anything is a collaborative process: no matter the great stuff, the bad stuff, and everything in between. I’m a teacher now at USC and Brown, and as I’ve grown older, I’ve returned to the purity and best practices that I started out with as an actress. What I loved about the script is that it was so true, so human, and told the truth. You’ve experienced what you’ve experienced; I've too, so has Julia, and it just felt real. The seamlessness of my relationship with Colby, and then the way Julia directed us, as well as the clarity and humanity with which she directed the movie, along with our two other fantastic actors, Neil Sandilands and Vaughn Armstrong - everybody was part of the team, telling the story. Even though it was a very dark theme, it was a very joyful place to work. So, isn’t that fantastic to be able to work on such a complicated and dark story, but also couldn’t wait to get to work every day.
What was the biggest challenge each of you faced when bringing the film to life, whether it was emotional, technical, or personal?
Julia Max: I think for me, the most challenging thing on any film is just getting the financing [Laughs]. Once we got that, it was about finding the right team, the right cast, because all it takes is one person to bring the whole thing crashing down. We truly had a phenomenal team on this, including our crew and producers; everyone was on their game, and the actors were just spectacular. We knew very early on in the process that this movie lives or dies by the performances of the mother and daughter. When we got Colby and Kate involved, I thought, 'I think this is going to work.' Seeing their chemistry and watching them together is the reason this movie works.
Kate Burton: As actors, when we come into a scene, we play the scene. We do master shots, close-ups, medium shots, larger shots, and small shots. We do inserts. We do 100 different things. Ideally, what Colby and I are trying to do is our best job every single time the camera goes on. The magic, let’s be honest, happens with Julia Max, and it's evident in the directing, editing, and how you tell the story. What Julia’s doing is telling the story. We hope to provide her with everything that she needs. Still, oftentimes you hear stories from big movies, small movies, where a scene ended up being so brilliant, but, in the moment they were shooting it, the actors didn’t really feel like they got it or that it didn’t happen the way they wanted it to. Then they put it all together, and something magical happens. That’s the beauty of filmmaking. This is what Julia, I think, has accomplished so hugely. Working with Colby is like working with a heat-seeking missile. She literally does not come into the room without 1000 million things going on, and as her [on-screen] mom, I’m like, here she goes [Laughs]. It’s just so true and so beautiful and so funny and so human, and that’s the script that Julia created for us to have. She created that playground. We played in the playground, and then she put it all together.
Colby Minifie: I’ve said this before, and I will say it until I die, this is my favorite thing that I’ve worked on because it was so joyful. You might not think so, but we had a great deal of fun, and I felt safe and trusted. That is rare to experience in this industry. When I read [the script] and auditioned, I thought, 'Oh, shit, here we go.' I was scared I was going to get this because I didn’t want to sit for a month and imagine my parents dying and imagine going through that experience with someone that I didn’t trust, or on a project that was a mess, or where not everybody was at the top of their game. As soon as I met Julia, she was like, This is how I want to shoot this. I want to lock off the camera and have you and Kate Burton play. I immediately trusted Julia. Then, of course, Kate Burton. When Julia told me it was going to be Kate, I freaked out and jumped for joy. The crew that Julia assembled was the cream of the crop. It was really the most fun and a total dream.
THE SURRENDER is now available to stream on Shudder.
