Canadian director Ted Kotcheff chose a hardcore slice of Aussie life to adapt for his debut feature. Something of an internationalist, Kotcheff would later direct for BBC1s social realist Play For Today in the 1970s, and introduce Stallones John Rambo to the world in FIRST BLOOD (1982) the more realistic Viet vet outsider of David Morrells novel, rather than the one-man army of later films. But all these career quirks pale against his adaptation of Kenneth Cooks 1961 Australian bestseller. In its aesthetic depiction of the outback, WAKE IN FRIGHT is an art movie thats too hard-edged for sensitive souls. Based on author Cooks travels around the Queensland and New South Wales regions, it tells the story of John Grant (Gary Bond), a mild-mannered schoolteacher who dreams of becoming a journalist in England. Instead he goes to work in the small town of Tiboonda, making a long stop-off en route at the mining town of Bundanyabba. There he tries to fit in with the ocker culture of constant beer drinking and outback roo hunts, a lifestyle which sucks him in like a recurring nightmare. The adage that inspired the title, Wake in fright and fear the Devil, is less a piece of local folklore than a metaphor for waking from uneasy sleep and facing a savage hangover. Jay Slater, who describes WAKE IN FRIGHT as, Brutal, sad, tender and poignant... Australias greatest film, disputes my including it here. Why is it a road movie? Youve got these guys in a pickup truck driving out for about four or five minutes. But the rural purgatory where they desperately whoop it up is like nowhere many of us will ever visit. More contentiously, he claims, Its one of the best Australian horror movies, justifying it thus: Youve got this guy who cant escape from this town which is a nightmare for someone who doesnt drink, and hes going to die of alcoholism. Whats not horrific about it? That is hell, for him. The only way he can escape is by committing suicide. But were in agreement on the shock of the films authentic kangaroo slaughter footage. Not only are they shot but their tails and extremities are cut off. As the films producer explained when putting it forward for UK certification, we decided to send the camera unit out with professional kangaroo hunters, who are licensed to shoot the animals and who kill every night thousands of kangaroos for commercial gain... both the director... and I feel that this film might wake up the Australian conscience to what is going on in the outback today...Its just unpleasant, demurs Slater, otherwise a champion of the film. But from the credits its all authentic kangaroo hunting, its not illegal. But Id be quite happy to see that footage cut out really, its not necessary. It doesnt need that sensationalism. I love WAKE IN FRIGHT, Ive read the book and Ive got the film, says Western Australian horror fiction author Anthony Ferguson, who will enlighten us later about the dark elements of Oz psychogeography. But for him the most disturbing moment isnt the mondo-style animal slaughter. I thought the scariest thing was the homosexual-type scene with Donald Pleasance. Veteran Brit horror and character actor Pleasance plays Doc Tydon, who introduces himself thus: Im a doctor of medicine... Im also an alcoholic. My disease prevented me from practising in Sydney. But out here its scarcely noticeable. Schoolteacher John will realise everythings gone much too far when he wakes from a drunken jag to find hes been anally raped by Tydon. I first saw WAKE IN FRIGHT (under its 70s X-certificate title OUTBACK) as support to a Nick Cave performance in 1989, epitomising the darker side of the Australian culture hed left behind and would revisit on a mystical level in his screenplay for THE PROPOSITION. But exposing my wife to the roo slaughter scene caused a minor marital spat...
Writer/editor/ghost-writer transfixed by crime, cinema and the serrated edges of popular culture. Those similarly afflicted are invited to make contact.
