MOVIE · 1971

Wake in Fright

DramaThriller114 min

On his way to Sydney for Christmas, schoolteacher John Grant stops in a remote mining town in the Australian outback and winds up stranded after a gambling binge leaves him broke. Gary Bond is Grant, a middle-class outsider pulled into Bundanyabba’s rituals of beer, coin tosses, and rough male company. Donald Pleasence appears among the locals he falls in with, as the trip home gives way to drunkenness, violence, and a steady unraveling of Grant’s judgment. The town’s hospitality keeps tightening around him, turning a brief stop into something far darker.