Redundant and unnecessary.

Powerful

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Smug and uptight British school teacher John Grant (a fine portrayal by Gary Bond) finds himself stranded in a hellish small town in the Australian outback that's populated by fiercely "friendly" drunken hooligans who eventually push Grant over the edge into madness, despair, and unhindered barbarism.Director Ted Kotcheff evokes a potently unsettling feeling of isolation and vulnerability from the remote rural region setting, maintains an unsparingly bleak tone throughout, and reveals the darker and more disturbing aspects of the rough'n'ready Aussie male character with jolting starkness and a masterful crafting of a gritty, yet surreal and nightmarish mood. The sharp and observant script by Evan Jones offers a bold and unflinching exploration of the dangers of "aggressive hospitality" and the startling extreme lengths hyper-masculine guys will go to in order to prove and assert a sense of virile potency over everything, with a chilling nocturnal kangaroo hunt rating as the definite shocking highlight. Donald Pleasance gives one of his best and most fearless performances as the educated, but slimy and depraved Doc Tyson, who assumes the role as a kind of insane fallen intellectual mentor to Grant as he descends right into the heart of human darkness. Moreover, there are bang-up contributions from Chips Rafferty as amiable constable Jock Crawford, Sylvia Kay as the forlorn and frustrated Janette Hynes, Jack Thompson as the rowdy Dick, Peter Whittle as the loutish Joe, Al Thomas as the jolly Tim, and John Meillon as affable bartender Charlie. Brian West's crisp picturesque cinematography vividly captures both the severe oppressive heat and suffocating backwoods hamlet atmosphere. A riveting and provocative stunner.

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........

John Grant is a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough outback mining town of Bundanyabba, planning only to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But after being greedy when he should have stopped gambling, his one night stretches to five, and he plunges toward his own self destruction. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a wasteland, looking at a rifle with one bullet left...Wake in Fright is the stuff that nightmares are made of. What happens to one person when they think that they can beat the house, and wanting to get out of their so called mundane life.Having your freedom and money to do it is a pipe dream to some of us, and John should have quit while he was ahead, he knew that something wasn't right about the place he was in, a film that makes you angry at the hero is doing something right, he should have just stayed in his room and smiled at the money, rather than let his 'bad side' tell him to go further.It's easily one of the finest Australian films ever made, but I'm unsure if it fits into the Ozsploitation banner that the films narrative is tinkering on. In this film, no one is friendly, everyone is sinister, even the ones who appear to be giving and friendly, Kotcheff gives the characters an air that they have some sort of ulterior motive, or hidden agenda.Pleasance is at his most disturbing here, and ironically the most harmless character here. But there are connotations of so e sort of abuse between Doc and John, and although you never see anything, it's insinuated.The Kangaroo scene is however one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen, and although it's stock footage of an actual hunt, the editing is superb, and the film just gets darker as the drunken nightmare progresses.This film should be used as a danger to alcohol, and if you watch closely, the alcohol starts off as looking refreshing and inviting, but soon the bottles and cans become more dirty, less inviting, and equal signs of trouble ahead.There is a little twist toward the end, but it's a wonderful psychedelic nightmare, you'll never want to be drunk in a strange place again.An essential movie, truly terrifying.

A good Australian drama that had the potential to be great. The background and setup were excellent. As you go further into the story you feel more and more trapped, as the lead character is. The writer and director take you on a downward spiral of alcoholism and hellscape-entrapment. It is suffocating, the lead character's predicament, and plays out almost like a horror movie. You can check out but you can never leave...The movie also shows the pointlessness and futurelessness of rural redneck life.However, from a point is almost starts to glamorize this lifestyle. There are several consecutive scenes that are quite irritating to watch: the drunken parties, the random kangaroo killings, the general drunken boganism. While this shows what awaits the lead character, it is very annoying.A tighter script around the 2/3rds mark and a grittier follow- through on the setup and this would have been a brilliant movie.