Wake in Fright: Limited Edition – Arrow Video (4K UHD)

Theatrical Release Date: Australia/UK/USA, 1971
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Writer: Evan Jones
Cast: Donald Pleasence, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay, Jack Thompson, John Meillon, Nancy Knudsen

Release Date: June 29th, 2026 (UK), June 30th, 2026 (USA)
Approximate Running Time: 108 Minutes 21 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 2160 Progressive / HEVC / H.265 / Dolby Vision HDR10
Rating: 18 (UK), R (USA)
Sound: DTS-HD Mono English
Subtitles: English SDH
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: £29.99 (UK), $49.95 (USA)

"John Grant (Gary Bond, Zulu), a bored schoolteacher working in the remote outback, stops overnight in the frontier mining town of Bundanyabba on his way back to Sydney for the Christmas holidays. After he loses all his savings in a bad gambling bet, Grant finds himself marooned and swept up in the vortex of a succession of hard-drinking, hard-living and crude men led by Doc (Donald Pleasence, Halloween) who threaten to make him just as crazy, drunk, and violent as they are." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 5/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, “The film was restored and made available by Umbrella Entertainment in conjunction with the Wake in Fright Trust. The original camera negative was scanned in 4K by the National Film and Sound Archive and graded and restored by ROAR Digital in Melbourne, Australia.” 

Wake in Fright comes on a 100 GB triple layer 4K UHD.

Disc Size: 93.1 GB

Feature: 76 GB

The source looks excellent. Flesh tones and colors look correct, and contrast, black levels, image clarity, and compression are solid, and the image always retains an organic appearance.

Audio: 4.5/5

This release comes with one audio option, a DTS-HD mono mix in English with removable English SDH. The track sounds clean, clear, and balanced, and the ambient sounds and the score are well-represented.

Extras:

Extras for this release include a stills gallery with music from the film playing in the background, a US TV spot (31 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), a US theatrical trailer (2 minutes 31 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), a restoration trailer (1 minute 26 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), Chips Rafferty obituary by Ken G. Hall (3 minutes 27 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), Who Needs Art?, a 1971 TV segment with behind-the-scenes footage (5 minutes 52 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), a 2009 TV report on the rediscovery and restoration of Wake in Fright (6 minutes 35 seconds, Dolby Digtal stereo English, no subtitles), alternate scenes from an international version titled Outback (10 minutes 40 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), an archival audio interview with director Ted Kotcheff, conducted by Paul Harris (130 minutes 27 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival audio interview with composer John Scott, conducted by music historian Daniel Schweiger (15 minutes 30 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with Ted Kotcheff titled Yer Mad, Ya Bastard! (12 minutes 57 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with actor Jack Thompson from Not Quite Hollywood (6 minutes 50 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), a Q&A with Ted Kotcheff from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival (45 minutes 51 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), The Filmmaker and the Film Buff, a discussion between Philippe Mora and Paul Harris (20 minutes 7 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), The Cinema’s Great Squeaky Bald Git, an appreciation of actor Donald Pleasence by film historian Kim Newman (14 minutes 51 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), Sounds of the Outback, a previously unreleased interview with sound editors Keith Palmer and Eddy Joseph (14 minutes 52 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an interview with the director of photography Brian West titled Take in Fright (20 minutes 42 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), a featurette tracking down the film’s Broken Hill locations titled Return to the ‘Yabba (49 minutes 46 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival audio commentary with Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley, an audio commentary with Peter Galvin, author of The Making of Wake in Fright, reversible cover art, a slipcover (limited to the first pressing), and a 44-page booklet (limited to the first pressing) with cast & crew information, an essay titled All the Little Devils are Proud of Hell written by by Jay Slater, an essay titled Terror in the Yabba written by Paul Lê, an essay titled Come and Have a Drink, Mate written by David Michael Brown, an archival writing titled On the Kangaroo Hunt written by Ted Kotcheff, an archival writing titled Lost & Found written by Anthony Buckley, and information about the transfer.

Other extras include a trailer reel of Australian films helmed by overseas filmmakers titled Foreign Visions of Local Stories (38 minutes 13 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles). The trailers are The Overlanders, Bitter Springs, A Town Like Alice, The Siege of Pinchgut, The Sundowners, They’re a Weird Mob, The High Commissioner (Nobody Runs Forever), Age of Consent, Walkabout, Sunstruck, Sidecar Racers, The Pyjama Girl Case, The Earthling, and The Coca Cola Kid.

Summary:

Ted Kotcheff directed Wake in Fright. Other notable films he directed are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Fun with Dick and Jane, North Dallas Forty, Split Image, Rambo: First Bood, Uncommon Valor, and Weekend at Bernie’s. Wake in Fright is an adaptation of Kenneth Cook’s novel of the same name.

A schoolteacher on an overnight stay in a frontier mining town loses all of his money gambling. Now broke and with nowhere to go, the townfolks take him in and expose him to their excessive drinking and hard living. Desperate to get out of town, the schoolteacher is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Wake in Fright is a film about choices. The narrative revolves around a man named John Grant, who ventures out into Bundanyabba instead of going straight to bed and catching a flight to Sydney in the morning. While exploring Bundanyabba, a policeman befriends him, but his generosity quickly becomes annoying. John tries his luck at two-up, a gambling game the locales play, and he becomes reckless when he starts to win. Resentful of the onerous terms of his employment, he sees a way to quickly earn the cash he needs to pay off his bond. John’s luck quickly runs out; he loses all of his money and now finds himself stranded in a place he loathes.

Wake in Fright is an unflinching portrayal of Australia's Outback. Most of the characters live a carefree life where they spend most of their time drinking. Trapped and with nowhere to go, John embraces the locale's way of life and becomes engulfed in their excesses. While there is nothing outwardly sinister about any of the characters, Wake in Fright is extremely effective at getting under your skin. That said, so much of Wake in Fright’s mood comes from the barren location Broken Hill, which is a character unto itself.

All around, the performances are excellent, especially Gary Bond’s portrayal of John Grant. He delivers a remarkable performance that perfectly conveys John’s prejudices and anxiety about his future. Another performance of note is Donald Pleasence's (Halloween) portrayal of a vagrant alcoholic doctor. That said, there is an authenticity to all of the performances that greatly aides the story that unfolds.

The visuals and John Scott’s (Symptoms) do a superb job of heightening the mood. In the case of the former, it simply lets the performances be the focal point, while the latter accentuates key moments. For a film that has many unsettling moments, none stand out more than the kangaroo hunting scene that contains genuine footage of kangaroos being shot. To say these moments are brutal would be an understatement. Ultimately, Wake in Fright is an aptly titled film that has not lost any of its potency.

Wake in Fright gets a definitive release from Arrow Video. Highly recommended.

Note about the 4K screenshots: It is not possible to make Dolby Vision or HDR10 screenshots that faithfully match the experience of watching a film in motion on a TV. Instead of not having any screenshots, all of the 4K screenshots are m2ts taken with a MPC-HC player and lossless PNGs.

Written by Michael Den Boer