British distributors Eureka Entertainment have revealed that they are planning to bring to Blu-ray director Ted Kotcheff's cult classic
Wake in Fright (1971), starring Donald Pleasence, Gary Bond, and Chips Rafferty. The film was expertly restored in 2009 by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive.
Eureka Entertainment will also bring
Wake in Fright to UK cinemas in early 2014, following a première at the Film4 FrightFest horror film festival in London, August 22–26, 2013.
A Blu-ray release with yet to be announced special features will arrive at a later date.
Wake in Fright is based on the 1961 novel by Kenneth Cook. It was first released under the title
Outback, describing the film's arid, sweltering, wasteland setting of Bundanyabba ("The Yabba"), an earthy mining town where schoolteacher John Grant (Bond) descends into a living hell when he is stranded on his way to meet his girlfriend in Sydney. Struggling to escape a men-gone-wild nihilistic world of binge drinking, habitual gambling, and senseless violence, Grant plunges headlong towards his own destruction, joined for the ride by alcoholic doctor "Doc" Tydon (Pleasance).