Wake in Fright
Director: Ted Kotcheff Run Time: 109 min. Format: DCP Release Year: 1971
NY Premiere (restoration)
Setting up shop in a new town, an Aussie schoolteacher has difficult assimilating into the town’s rowdy group of toxically masculine, constantly inebriated locals, whose collective behavior becomes more psychotic as the teacher’s mind becomes less intact. A cinematic powder keg of testosterone and hysteria, acclaimed filmmaker Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 classic has long been one of your favorite genre director’s (take your pick on which director) favorite films, and it now looks better than ever thanks to a new 4K restoration overseen by Not Quite Hollywood director and film historian Mark Hartley. -Matt Barone