Synopsis
A schoolteacher, stuck in a teaching post in an arid backwater, stops off in a mining town on his way home for Christmas. Discovering a local gambling craze that may grant him the money to move back to Sydney for good, he embarks on a five-day nightmarish odyssey of drinking, gambling, and hunting.
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Cast
- Gary BondJohn Grant
- Donald PleasenceDoc Tydon
- Chips RaffertyJock Crawford
- Sylvia KayJanette Hynes
- Jack ThompsonDick
- Peter WhittleJoe
- Al ThomasTim Hynes
- John MeillonCharlie
- John ArmstrongAtkins
- Slim DeGreyJarvis
Recommendations
- 100
Slant Magazine
The film's vision of masculine self-sufficiency is built around--and on, via Australia's own bloody colonial history--an elemental violence. - 100
Observer
Wake in Fright is the closest a movie can get to a primal scream. - 100
Slant Magazine
The film's vision of masculine self-sufficiency is built around--and on, via Australia's own bloody colonial history--an elemental violence. - 100
Observer
Wake in Fright is the closest a movie can get to a primal scream. - 91
Portland Oregonian
As unpleasant as so many of its going-on are, Wake in Fright works both as an early instance of "Ozploitation" cinema and as a harsh critique of Australian colonialism and the absurdity of trying to bring so-called civilization to this vast arid wilderness. - 91
Portland Oregonian
As unpleasant as so many of its going-on are, Wake in Fright works both as an early instance of "Ozploitation" cinema and as a harsh critique of Australian colonialism and the absurdity of trying to bring so-called civilization to this vast arid wilderness. - 90
Salon
It's simultaneously terrifying and hilarious, a full-on shotgun blast to the face of rediscovered 1970s weirdness, something like finding out that there's a classic Peckinpah film you've never seen, or that Wes Craven and Bernardo Bertolucci got drunk in Sydney one weekend and decided to make a movie together. - 90
Los Angeles Times
As a strictly psychological portrait of destructive masculinity it's a gut-sock, vividly photographed, thrillingly edited and marked by performances (Donald Pleasence and Jack Thompson, most notably) that heave with strange complexity and dark camaraderie.Wake in Fright is true horror.
