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.
Gary Bond Donald Pleasence Chips Rafferty Sylvia Kay Jack Thompson Peter Whittle Al Thomas John Meillon John Armstrong Slim DeGrey Maggie Dence Norm Erskine Owen Moase John Dalleen Buster Fiddess Tex Foote Colin Hughes Jacko Jackson Nancy Knudsen Dawn Lake Harry Lawrence Robert McDarra Carlo Manchini Liam Reynolds Nelson
Outback, 假期惊魂, 웨이크 인 프라이트, 内陆惊魂, Despertar en el infierno, Réveil dans la terreur, Pelos Caminhos do Inferno, Ferien in der Hölle, Korkuyla Uyan, Да се събудиш в страх, Опасное пробуждение, Na krańcu świata, 荒野の千鳥足
France
Cannes Film Festival
USAR
AustraliaM
France12
AustraliaM
Germany16
UK18
USAR
Uruguay
Norway18
UK18
Japan
Australia
France
Germany
Japan
Norway
UK
USA
Uruguay
the only horror film brave enough to ask the chilling question: "what if you had to hang out with Australians."
The most nihilistic film of all time. Worse than hell; there is nothing. You can drink, you can kill and you can try to escape but you'll still just end up in a void of your own human awfulness.
Recommended to me on my Make me watch your favourite list.
Sweltering and oppressive, Wake in Fright is a man's disconcerting descent into his own personal hell.
Kotcheff's film first slowly peels only to end up clawing at its protagonist's humanity, exposing an animalistic nerve that is both confronting and harrowing. Acted superbly across the board and shot with a colour palette that only adds to the scorching desert heat, Wake in Fright captures life in the Australian outback in, what I can only assume, a painfully realistic way.
This film is astonishing. It takes the simplest of premises, a man stuck in a place trying to get away, and turns it into an inevitable, slow, spiralling plunge into the…
"Come on, John, have a drink."
"Oh no, that's alright, I really shouldn't."
"Nonsense, John, come have a pint with us."
"I'm alright, thanks though."
"John."
"Yeah?"
"Come have a pint."
"I think I'll just have some water instead."
"Have a fucking pint with us, John."
"..."
"COME HAVE A FUCKING PINT, YA BASTARD!"
*John's head explodes*
A genuine nightmare captured on film. Shockingly dismal and almost stunningly beautiful in its ugliness. The descent of a man straight into his own personal hell. Anyone who has ever spiraled out in their lives knows what this is like and since I’m one of those people, I related all too heavily to a man turning into something he never thought he could be.
Every frame is dripping with sweat and grime and it’s so in your face that you can almost smell it and it’s not pleasant in the least, but it is captivating in an inexplicable way. And hey it’s actually a Christmas movie since it takes place over the holidays!
Gary Bond and Donald Pleasance deliver knockout…
“Wake in Fright” is a film that doesn’t so much fray nerves, as it does flay the skin clear off; roasting the remnants of humanity in the unforgiving outback heat.
Director Ted Kotcheff’s Australian New Wave thriller was one of only two films to ever screen twice at Cannes; encoring when its restored 2009 release arrived with an introduction by Martin Scorsese.
The work was simply too disturbing the first time around.
“Fright” depicts the physical, moral and spiritual degradation of John Grant, an English schoolteacher who spends a short stopover in a back country Australian township.
Distinguishing “Fright” from similar horror flick kin, which would make the Grant’s journey one of hillbilly victimhood, is that the protagonist is as…
Schoolteacher John Grant drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and then gets in a fist fight with a kangaroo.
Unforgivable. Nothing justifies the mass murder of kangaroos that forms the centerpiece of Wake in Fright. However. Nothing is a more gruesome affirmation of man's evil than this extended and drawn out massacre that unfolds in Wake in Fright. It is relentless and symbolic of the darkest descent a man can embark on. The evil, hedonistic energy of the hunt is exhilarating, similar to the joy of throwing up midway through an alcohol binge. This is the cinema of corruption, a lesson in how to lose your soul. It's the mad, degrading spiral we can all fall into. It's a film to make you sick, and relish the sweet relief of warm vomit.
Wake in Fright follows a respectable man,…
"Have you got snakes in your pockets?"
John Grant a well to do school teacher goes insane in the membrane in a small Australian town nicknamed the Yabba by the locals, who also happen to be the most aggressively kind people you could ever come across - they'll shoot you if you don't let them buy you a beer!
John ends up having to stay with the local town drunk/doctor played absolutely deranged to a tee by (Michael Myers botherer) Donald Pleasence after losing all his money betting in the local bar which goes quickly down hill for John afterwards.
This movie is a total sun stroked, fever dream of a nightmare that you'll make you want to have a shower straight afterwards to get the sweat and sand off your Yabba Dabba Doo's!
"You don't like the Yabba?"
Lise and Jonnie's What A Wonderful World 2015
All my life I’ve held the misbelief that Canadians were champion drinkers. Not even close. Earlier this year seeing the Russian drama Leviathan shattered my belief, but I comforted myself saying ‘that was vodka’. When it comes to beer, we’re still tops. Apparently not. Those outback Aussies would clean our clocks. ‘Here, drink that up so I can buy you another!’
Wake in Fright is a lucid waking nightmare. It claws at you and pulls you down, deeper and deeper. Resist as you might, its simple nature and utterly base morality and behavior may appear beneath you, causing you to underestimate its charm and power, and this is exactly where the nightmare…
Spoilers if you're nasty
I'm not sure there's a better representation of "hell" in all of cinema than the Yabba. The Yabba is hot, unforgiving, and the residents drink until nothing matters anymore. Death exists on the outskirts of town as corpses of animals pile up on streets you can't even see due to the dust and grime of the outback. John Grant is caught in the Yabba after he takes a gamble with all the money he has in his pockets to try and buy his freedom to Sydney where he'd spend the rest of his life on the ocean with a woman who loves him dearly. It's the other side of the Yabba, an exact opposite, but Grant…
Have a drink mate: how to recognize aggressive hospitalitWILL YOU HAVE A DRINK, MATE?
