In Review: Wake In Fright

‘Take Janette for instance; now there’s a very interesting biological case. If she were a man, she’d be in jail for rape.’ - Doc Tydon, drunken resident of the ‘Yabba’.

Opening with a lingering 360 degree, panoramic shot featuring only two buildings and a railway track surrounded by a gluepot sun-drenched desert nothingness, Wake In Fright methodically tantalises us at the horror to come. Here we meet John Grant, a cultured school teacher sent from England to the remote outback community of Tiboonda, a satellite town of Bundanyabba - known to the locals as simply, the ‘Yabba’.

“Best place in Australia. Everybody likes the Yabba.” points out his cab driver as he enters Bundanyabba’s city limits. We’re entitled to agree with that notion at first when Grant enters a closed for the evening pub only to be shouted a metric tonne of beer from none other than the head of the Yabba’s police force, Jock Crawford (brilliantly portrayed by old-school aussie acting legend Chips Rafferty in his final screen role). Jock treats Grant to the Yabbas unique hospitality, and you’d be hard pressed not calling this the friendliest little place on earth. But the benign drinking habits and friendly larrikin behaviour entice you in, soon this behaviour gives way to something more sinister. Something seamier. Something vile and putrid. Grant soon realises that to much of a good thing can be a very bad thing. The town’s relentless friendliness only adds to the growing psychological horror.