Set in a desolate corner of the Australian Outback, Ted Kotcheff’s bracing psychological thriller follows John Grant (Gary Bond), a schoolteacher who winds up stranded in a remote town called Bundanyabba while on his way to Sydney for a holiday. His stopover turns into a nightmarish descent into madness as he becomes enmeshed in the town’s aggressive, alcohol-fueled culture and uncomfortably familiar with some of its less savory inhabitants, including sinister, hard-drinking “Doc” Tydon (Donald Pleasence). With all his money gambled away, John spirals into a state of despair, and soon he begins to fall prey to his own worst instincts. Unsparingly bleak in its beer-soaked, sweat-drenched depiction of rural Australian life, WAKE IN FRIGHT is a haunting and genuinely disturbing portrayal of a man losing his grip on reality. A commercial disappointment at the time of its release, the now-lauded film has slowly but surely amassed a reputation as a hugely influential high point in Australian cinema’s New Wave of the 1970s. - Text Courtesy of the Philadelphia Film Society