Trial Run (1984 film)

Trial Run is a 1984 New Zealand film directed by Melanie Read starring Annie Whittle. The film is a feminist revision of the thriller genre.

Plot summary
Rosemary Edmonds, a photographer and runner, must temporarily leave her husband and two children when she moves into a remote coastal cottage to carry out an assignment to photograph a colony of rare penguins. It soon becomes apparent that she is being stalked in the cottage by an unknown tormentor. In a twist ending, the "stalker" is revealed to be Rosemary's own teenage son.

Production
Trial Run was the first New Zealand feature film to be written and directed by a woman, and had a largely female cast and crew. Marathon runner Allison Roe and reporter Karen Sims appear briefly as themselves in a television interview seen early in the film.

Reception
The film received mixed reviews. In New Zealand, The Press described it as "enjoyable and satisfying in its small way", while Rip It Up felt the film suffered from a "rather sketchy script". In the UK, critic F. Maurice Speed called it a "fascinating and cleverly worked thriller"; Leslie Halliwell and John Elliot found the film generated some suspense but criticised its surprise ending as weak; while Time Out and The Guardian found the final revelation of the culprit's motives to be "preposterous" and "verging on the incomprehensible".

Several film historians have compared Trial Run to Gaylene Preston's Mr. Wrong (1985), another New Zealand thriller with feminist themes.