Wake In Fright (1971, Ted Kotcheff)
Oh my god, I fucking love this film. My husband [Steven Sheil] runs this horror film festival, Mayhem, and they have these film nights when they are choosing films for the festival, and I will usually watch one and then that is enough for me. There is a lot of horror I don't like – you can't reason with a zombie, and I'm not interested in that. But five years ago, they tracked down this film. Steven knew about it and managed to get hold of it. They were trying to release it for a while, and it is astounding. It plays like a Chris Cooke storyline – good-looking man loses all his money and ends up completely fucked. I love that descent into crazy, how one small action can lead to all this. It looks phenomenal, they have kangaroo fighting, Donald Pleasence is a crazy man in it – but I mainly love the idea that one small moment after another can culminate in a clusterfuck of despair, it is just brilliant.