Brock Yurich’s “Test” Is The Raw Gay Bodybuilder Drama That Will Leave The Community Breathless This Summer
A competitive bodybuilder hiding his sexuality starts falling for his coach. That’s the premise of Test, a new feature written by and starring Brock Yurich, who spent ten years getting it made. Variety premiered the first teaser trailer on 27 May 2026.
Yurich plays Eddie, an athlete chasing physical perfection on the bodybuilding circuit while his private life pulls in another direction. The polish on stage hides a darker story underneath, one that takes in performance-enhancing drugs, substance abuse and violence.
When his old girlfriend (Paloma Garcia-Lee) catches Eddie and his coach Mike (Mike Edward) being affectionate in a quiet moment, the wall between his two worlds starts to crack.
Faith, the body and a mother who won’t let go
Religion sits at the centre of Eddie’s bind. Tammy Blanchard plays his ultra-religious mother and manager, heard in the trailer yelling “God doesn’t want this for you” as her son storms out. Later she sobs down the phone, “My son, he needs an ambulance.” Glee star Matthew Morrison turns up as a local pastor.
Director Sam McConnell, making his scripted feature debut, built the film around that collision of belief and identity. “Convinced that his only path forward is through perfecting the body God gave him, Eddie pursues bodybuilding with an obsessive devotion that ultimately forces him to confront questions of identity, masculinity and faith,” he said. “He is on a mission to perfect his exterior at the same time his interior is crumbling around him.”
A decade in the making
For Yurich, the project was personal and slow to arrive. “Telling Eddie’s story through my screenplay Test was all I could think about for the past 10 years,” he told Variety. “Making an independent film is a long painful process, but I knew the pain of giving up on it would be far greater.”
The wait is nearly over. Test has its world premiere on 3 June at SXSW London, followed by the Provincetown International Film Festival in the United States, and it lands as an official selection at Frameline in San Francisco. We’ll be watching where it goes from there.
