Ted Kotcheff's WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971) from Drafthouse Films 1/15
 

Gritty and uncompromising, Ted Kotcheff's Ozploitation masterpiece WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971) receives its U.S. home video debut courtesy of Drafthouse Films. Big city schoolteacher John Grant is forced to accept an out-of-the-way post as condition for his loan. En route, he stops at a blue collar mining town, whose seedy denizens introduce him to drink and gambling, leading him deeper and deeper into a personal hell...

A hit at Cannes when it first premiered, faulty storage almost led to the film being lost save a few VHS masters. After a decade-long search, elements were finally turned up by the original editor and a lengthy restoration was undertaken. Almost unknown on our shores, its inclusion in the Aussie documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD instantly made it a must-see, and now Drafthouse is more than happy to oblige!

Preorder:
Blu: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ag=cinema09-20
DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ag=cinema09-20

Trailer:
http://youtu.be/HKfrUPSnbyk

http://emmawestwood.files.wordpress....in-fright3.jpg

Never got around to picking up the Australian Blu-ray, but will be picking up the Drafthouse disc.

Theatrical dates, for those of us that still go to the movies:

http://drafthousefilms.com/now-playing

Hits Baltimore in December!

Review from DVD Beaver:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-r...ht_blu-ray.htm

I finally caught it when it played here a couple months ago. Definitely looking forward to picking up the Blu ray.

I saw it as a kid under the title OUTBACK,love to see it again.

I wonder what the deal is with the audio on these Drafthouse Blu-rays? :eek2: You'd think they'd want to go for lossless, but the last few Blu-rays from them have all just had lossy audio with low bitrates.

Miami Connection even had DTS-HD Master Audio displayed on the back cover, but it's actually just a standard lossy Dolby track.

Is the Blu really uncut? Reviews on amazon claim that the disc is edited. But they talk about the cut version being 92 minutes and the uncut "Outback" version being 114 minutes. The Blu is 108 minutes, so could this be due to Pal/NTSC?

No, 1080p HD has nothing to do with PAL/NTSC runtime differences.

This is a "restored" version, and it sounds like some people are just expecting it to be identical to the early 70's theatrical release...which may no longer even exist. It's the same running time as the Aussie Blu-ray, so I doubt there'll be any official Blu-ray release forthcoming that's radically different any time soon.

http://www.jbhifionline.com.au/dvd/d...blu-ray/461672

Aussie BluRay $15.98 at the moment. Fantastic movie. If you've never seen it then you must see it just for the fact that Donald Pleasance drinks beer while standing on his head.

Oh, and those who are easily offended by real life animal death might want to skip the roo hunting scene, although there is a disclaimer at the end of the film about that particular scene.

Blu-Ray.com review:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Wake-i.../56897/#Review

This was on TV the other night. While I didn't really watch it, as such, I can't say I enjoyed it a whole lot. Too much reminded me of Razorback, and I didn't enjoy that one much either. (The doco on the R/back DVD is more interesting than the film, TBH.)

Still, I'm sure it will be repeated soon, so I won't judge it too harshly until I do see it. I did love the small school in the beginning though!! (I am a NSW girl, born and raised, and this school had classic NSW public school design. :D)

Interview with the director:

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=10286

I'm glad it wasn't he who approved the overuse of DNR. I watched the Blu-ray last night and it's extremely heavy in many scenes. Grain is completely scrubbed out, faces look like wax, blurry detail, etc.. Oddly some scenes do have some healthy grain visible and the DNR was toned down in those.

There's one scene about 72 minutes in the film where dust is blown in the scene and it looks more like "fog" than dust. If nothing else, the transfer is very inconsistent in its quality.

I was really hoping they'd do a new scan rather than port over the Australian master, though who knows what shape the relocated elements are actually in. I did catch the 35mm print that's touring, and it was pretty grainy, so I imagine they really had to slather on the DNR to remove it. My blu should be arriving any day now.

Mark Tinta did a great review of the film over at his blog (pretty spoiler-heavy, so beware if you haven't seen the film yet):

http://goodefficientbutchery.blogspo...in-fright.html