Kim Ryberg This movie is absolutely incredible. The constant sense of dread is palpable, from its opening sequence depicting the desolation and dust of the Outback to the ominous train ride to the nightmare that is the Yabba at night. Truly a masterpiece of cinematography and storytelling, and the most real "horror" movie that you will ever see. If you've ever been to the outback, the desolation seems to press in you from all sides, because as Jock claims "there's nowhere else to go." Through showing John Grant's slow slide into depravity and terror, the director highlights the brutality in human nature and the price of various different vices. You can sense John turning from an intelligent, sensitive man into a careless brute, all the while fueled by enormous amounts of alcohol and peer pressure. Some of the most moving scenes put onto camera. For the animal lovers, yes, the kangaroo scene is brutal, yes, real kangaroos died, but the POINT of their death is to showcase the glee with which these men ruthlessly kill these animals. A descent into hell on Earth that leaves you spellbound and terrified. 10/10, a must see!

Woodyanders 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.

tomgillespie2002 One of the pioneering films of the Australian New Wave, Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright was released in 1971 to widespread critical acclaim after a number of successful festival screenings. It was then lost for nearly 40 years, found by the film's editor Anthony Buckley in a bin marked 'for destruction'. The New Wave, which eventually gave birth to Ozploitation, showed polar opposite views of Australia. The likes of Peter Weir and Nicholas Roeg portrayed the country's mystical, spiritual beauty, while movies like Mad Dog Morgan (1976) and Mad Max (1979) exploited the country's rough-and-tumble reputation.Wake in Fright is somewhere in between - a nightmarish journey into the heart of man's primitive instincts, and into a country in which the inhabitants of back-road towns welcome you with aggressive hospitality. Yet there's something oddly alluring about the sweaty, dusty streets of Bundanyabba ('The Yabba') and it's collection of disturbingly eccentric gamblers and alcoholics. Gary Bond's mild- mannered schoolteacher, John Grant, finds himself in The Yabba on route to Sydney to see his girlfriend, but circumstance and insistence means he can't get out. It's simple-minded townsfolk and excessive beer-swilling attitudes repulse him, but the animal inside of him becomes addicted, and he ends up losing all of his money on a simple game of heads-and-tails.God bless the persistence of Anthony Buckley, as Wake in Fright is a terrifying masterpiece. At times, it's incredibly difficult to watch. It's a relentless barrage of warm beer, unbearable heat and extreme masculinity, where the only cure to a head-pounding hangover is to gulp more warm beer. Grant meets Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence - never better), an alcoholic doctor who left his home and job to take residence in the Yabba, a place where his drunken, often violent behaviour is not only accepted, but gives him a social standing, and his idiosyncrasies are celebrated. Doc is Grant's mirror-image, or at least an image of who he could become if he doesn't manage to leave the hell-hole. Doc doesn't need money to survive, he lives on kangaroo stew and favours.Most of the film's controversy stems from the infamous kangaroo hunt, in which many of the creatures are blasted apart by Doc, Grant, and two other men. This scene is less stomach-churning than the scenes in Cannibal Holocaust (1980), but is a hundred times more unnerving. But there's an odd beauty to the scene, especially when one of the group decides to take one on with a knife in a thrilling encounter. And that sums Wake in Fright up, its utterly repellent, yet you can't take your eyes away. The Yabba's inhabitants celebrate everything with a drink, gulp it down like there's no tomorrow, and are completely perplexed if you refuse. It's ugly, brutal stuff about man's potential for ugliness and brutality, but also a commentary on man's natural primal urges. I now have three reasons never to visit Australia - spider, snakes, and The Yabba.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

poe426 When one-room schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) ends up in the dusty little one-horse town of "Yabba," he finds himself down and all but out: drunkenly gambling away what little money he has, he finds himself wandering from place to place in search of sustenance (which consists mostly of beer, which he guzzles with great gusto throughout the movie). (An odd habit, that: alcohol dehydrates you, yet everyone in this town guzzles it like it's going out of style.) Grant wakes after one drinking binge to find himself in the shack of "Doc Tyden" (Donald Pleasence). "I'm a doctor of medicine," he tells Grant: "And a tramp by temperament." Along with a pair of Doc's drinking buddies, he and Grant go on a late night shooting spree. Their prey: kangaroos. In what's easily one of the most disturbing animal-killing sequences in any movie ever made, we see the 'roos actually being shot on camera. A "disclaimer" of sorts at the end of the movie tells us that the slaughter was handled "by licensed professionals." I can't help but equate THAT one with the abrogations of Nazi soldiers: "We were just following orders." Grant gets so caught up in the bloodletting that he cuts the throat of a 'roo (a one-eyed 'roo, at that) before winding up back in the cabin with Doc- who proceeds to sexually assault him. Heads or tails, WAKE IN FRIGHT is a disturbing but must-see piece of filmmaking.