GazerRise Fantastic!

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Fella_shibby I first saw this in 2010 on a DVD. That time i was on a horror movie spree. I came across this title after watching Wolf creek. As a fan of movies based in Outbacks n Badlands n thinking of it being an outback horror i was excited bah this flick. Recently revisited this on a blu ray. The film is based on a 1961 novel of the same name by Kenneth Cook. Well, its not a true horror film but it is genuinely shocking, funny n weird at times. The movie is about a schoolteacher, who is not happy teaching in the middle of the desolate wilderness of the Outback. The opening scene shows beside a railroad track, jus two buildings,a school n a hotel. Both of em in the middle of nowhere. The cinematography is gorgeous, completely sun-soaked (i felt like just wearing a vest like the majority of the characters coz of the heat). The film feels claustrophobic and suffocating, even though the Outback is wide open. It is the end of the school year. The teacher is planning to head to Sydney for his vacation to meet his girlfriend. He lands in a town called The Yabba, an outback town populated by aggressively friendly weirdoes. The town is full of working-class population, primarily white males, outnumbering females, who all are happy drinking their beer in its own exclusive heat-haze bubble of dust and sand, sealed off from the rest of Australian civilisation by endless miles of desert outback emptiness. The teacher loses his money gambling in a weird game and constantly bumps into hard-drinking, hard-living, crude, vicious men. He descends into drunkenness, brutality, rape and a gruesome moonlight hunt where they massacre kangaroos (possibly the most disturbing five minutes). It's hard to watch, but only because it demonstrates the realistic results of human nature. We hav Donald Pleasance playin a doc once again. He is the backbone of this film, a true weirdo. Awesome acting.

loumiles-25568 im Australian, and this is the best Aussie movie ever made, i love it, its so unsettling, i cant believe it was made in 1971, as it has not aged one bit, i have read that the candian director ted kotcheff has said it is his best film. he directs this movie in a way, that shows Australia in a light that is not seen very often, i don't think a lot of people in the Australian film industry liked this movie when it came out, the movie has been very hard to get, until the last 10 years, it is now considered a cult classic. im 36 and can remember chasing this movie down when i was in my early 20's, i couldn't stand the rambo movies, but was told that first blood was different, and it sure was, i was really impressed, and could not believe how such a great movie could spawn such crap. so i looked up the director and thats how i found wake in fright...........it all made sense then. kotcheff uses Australia as another medium for horror, great film making. it would be great too see some more Aussie films like this one. please no more WOLF CREEK........

yajji Wake in Fright is about a part of Australia that seems to have been clean forgotten. It is a snapshot of a history and life that was swept under a rug, largely due to the colonisation of the country. Very few Australians will be familiar with the Outback aside from a vague familiarity, nor will they be aware of the threateningly machismo life portrayed in Wake in Fright, but it is a life that does exist, far beyond the fringes of the city, in the hauntingly beautiful Outback. The narrative is based on a book of the same time, about a schoolteacher from the city who finds himself in rural Australia doing teaching work for money. During his stay, he ends up in a landlocked, isolated town in the barren Australian desert colloquially called the "Yabba". The primitive way of life here initially floors the well-to-do citizen, but the town and strips back his polished city exterior. The undoing of a polite, cultured gentleman at the hands of derelict desert folk is actually one of the most disturbing aspects of this film. I kept thinking that this man (John is his name) was going to fall victim to a horrible act of violence by the group of eccentric, predominantly wasted townspeople. But instead, the film takes a different route, a far more disturbing one, and places John at the centre of the depravity. He does not fall victim to their behaviour, rather he participates in it until it ravages him almost to the point of no return. The shred of credibility and decency that John has left sees him flee the town. He has had a taste of a more simplistic, animalistic, impulsive existence, but the city life has not allowed him to fully amalgamate himself within this recklessly masculine crowd.The film is masterfully well made. The scrumptious, beautiful colours and settings of the Outback are so rich and bare that they almost become surreal. Director Ted Kotcheff isn't the first person to see the Outback as a foreboding and menacing place, but he has probably helped solidified this view in one of the most memorable ways. The performances are all excellent and you wouldn't know Donald Pleasance is a British veteran actor, because he has got the role of a grubby small town man down to a tee. In fact, all of the actors who portrayed the inhabitants of the Yabba really do seem like they were plucked off the street, they have a naturalism that compliments the film and makes it all the more frightening. Brian West, the cinematographer, deserves much credit too. The heat of the Australian summer is so palpable and raw that it feels as though you are there, in those ramshackle pubs, with sweat from your forehead dripping into your beer (which is almost never empty thanks to the "hospitable" locals). It is such a visceral, often menacing and gut-wrenching experience.I highly recommend this film. It really is incomparable to anything I've ever seen. It isn't really a commonplace thriller, but rather a drama about a way of life that has been forgotten, in favour of a more polished existence. Australia is a fascinating country because it is home to both the city and the rural, timeless outback... very contradictory realities. But sometimes when these very alternate ways of existence meet, chaos ensues. The result is intoxicating.

Jackson Booth-Millard This film had apparently been lost for over 30 years before it was found again, it was added into the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I had to see if it was all worth it, directed by Ted Kotcheff (Fun with Dick and Jane, First Blood). Basically in Australia, John Grant (Gary Bond) is a middle-class teacher from the big city who arrives in the rough outback mining town of Bundanyabba, known as "The Yabba". John plans to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney, he has accepted a position at the tiny school in Tiboonda, but John's one night is stretched to five by his own methods. It is through encountering many discomfiting characters, such as medical practitioner "Doc" Tydon (Donald Pleasence) and policeman Jock Crawford (Chips Rafferty), and a series of alcoholic fuelled nights out, that John causes his own self-destruction. When the alcohol effects fade away there is little left of the original man, John becomes self-loathing trapped in a desolate wasteland, and he contemplates suicide with the one bullet he has left in his rifle, will he get out of it and get back to a sane civilisation? Also starring Sylvia Kay as Janette Hynes, Jack Thompson as Dick, Peter Whittle as Joe, Al Thomas as Tim Hynes and John Meillon as Charlie. Bond as the frustrated teacher going downhill during his time in the small town is good, and Pleasence proves himself a good character actor, this film has been called the "Australian Deliverance", I can see what similarities with the format, the film makes you feel uncomfortable with its disturbing imagery, and you hope desperately the leading character will get out of the downward spiral, a weird but worthwhile thriller. Very good!