OUTBACK Movie Review

Wake in Fright

A horror movie about beer: that's something you don't see everyday, and neither is a film that manages to be this unnerving while containing this much sunlight. Outback is the story of an Australian schoolteacher (Gary Bond) on summer vacation, who gets off his train at a stop just to stretch his legs, promptly gambles away his money, and finds himself stranded among beer-swilling, kangaroo-hunting dimwits. One of the swillers is a vaguely depraved, alcoholic ex-doctor (Donald Pleasance) who meets the teacher in a bar and insists he order the house special: a steak with a fried egg on it for only one dollar. After his dinner arrives, the teacher stares down at the fatty gray mass queasily. “You gonna eat that?” queries Pleasance, who then spears the fried egg with his fork and stuffs it in his mouth. “Best dollar you'll ever spend,” Pleasance mumbles, washing it all down noisily with warm beer. You keep hoping that someone from American Express will show up with Bond's travelers’ checks, but instead, blokes keep buying him more beer. At first the teacher tries to drink and hunt with “the boys” because he's afraid they'll pummel him if he doesn't; soon, though, his civilized veneer begins to crack, and his newly conjured macho brutality starts getting good to him. Outback marks a considerable change of pace from the better known Australian films that American art house audiences are accustomed to, perhaps because the director, Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz), is really Canadian. The slightly longer, original cut, released under the title Wake in Fright, was rediscovered a few years back by the Telluride Film Festival.

NEXT STOP… The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, A Cry in the Dark, Night of the Living Dead (1968)

1971 109m/C AU Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, John Armstrong, Charles Hughes, John Meillon, Chips Rafferty, Al Tomas, Jack Thompson, John Dalleen, Slim De Gray, Maggie Dence, Norman Erskine, Buster Fiddess, Tex Foote, Mark “Jacko” Jackson, Sylvia Kay; D: Ted Kotcheff; W: Evan Jones; C: Brian West; W: John Scott. NYR