Film

Rip It Up, Issue 89, 1 December 1984, Page 36

Film

William Dart

TRIAL RUN Director: Melanie Read With a plot that involves Annie Whittle isolated in the wilds of Otago among things that go bump in the night. Trial Run might seem a strange feature film debut for a woman director. Superficially, it might even seen to be dangerously close to that genre of sexploitation horror (a long and depressing list, starting with Kubrick's The Shining), yet Read's feminist sympathies are clearly focused in this tale of one woman’s struggle for survival. It's very evident that Trial Run sets out to be more than just

another horror film but, ultimately, its sheer ambitiousness lies uneasily on a rather sketchy script. Of course "red herrings” are part-and-parcel of any selfrespecting horror/mystery film, but when these take the form of unresolved issues, they become mord problematic. Annie Whittle's stand for independence in taking on the photographic assignment and the accompanying sidelights on the environmental issue fit naturally into the plot. Hints of a past affair between Whittle’s husband and best friend or the recurring vision of Margaret Blay’s ghost in the beach cottage, simply confuse matters. With less distraction from the other issues mentioned above, it may have been crystalised in a more convincing manner. Allen Guilford's camerawork, with Whangaparoa Peninsula standing in for remote Otago, is highly effective, as is Jan Preston’s music score, much more incisively realised than that she wrote for Skin Deep a few years back. Annie Whittle proves the central force that almost manages to hold the film together, such is the conviction of her performance as a plucky and resourceful heroine. When the script allows her, Judith Gibson displays the same authority that Auckland theatre-goers are accustomed to seeing from the actress. The scenes involving the family are rather less successful and, to some degree, it’s the perennial script problem. Lee Grant’s farming neighbour seems too theatrical to ever look at ease on a tractor, although Martyn Sanderson's gruff, laconic “red herring villain” manages to catch a real Kiwi type to perfection.