Once thought to be lost, Ted Kotcheff's hard-hitting seminal 70s work, WAKE IN FRIGHT, returns to the big screen restored this fall. You can find its brand new one-sheet and NY & LA theaters below.

WAKE IN FRIGHT is the story of John Grant (Gary Bond), a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough Australian outback mining town of Bundanyabba, planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But, as his one night stretches to five, he plunges headlong toward his own destruction. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left.

Having premiered at the 1971 Cannes film festival, where it was nominated for the Palme D'or, WAKE IN FRIGHT found itself in very limited release in the U.S. as OUTBACK, and soon after was thought lost until cinematographer Brian West recently uncovered the original negatives. 

Even Martin Scorcese is pumped, saying “WAKE IN FRIGHT is a deeply–and I mean deeply–unsettling and disturbing movie. I saw it when it premiered at Cannes in 1971, and it left me speechless. Visually, dramatically, atmospherically and psychologically, its beautifully calibrated and it gets under your skin one encounter at a time, right along with the protagonist played by Gary Bond. I’m excited that Wake In Fright has been preserved and restored and that it is finally getting the exposure it deserves.”

You can catch the fully restored WAKE IN FRIGHT October 5 in NYC at Film Forum and October 12 in LA at the Landmark NuArt, with additional national dates to follow. 

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