Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973)
"Thriller - en grym film" (original title)

A young woman, muted after a sexual assault as a child, is trained to seek violent revenge on those who have wronged her after being kidnapped and forced to work as a prostitute.

Director:

Bo Arne Vibenius

Writers:

Bo Arne Vibenius (screenplay), Bo Arne Vibenius (an original story)

Stars:

Christina Lindberg, Heinz Hopf, Despina Tomazani

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Christina Lindberg	...	Frigga
Heinz Hopf	...	Tony
Despina Tomazani	...	Lip-stick lesbian
Per-Axel Arosenius	...	Frigga's Father (as Per Axel Arosenius)
Solveig Andersson	...	Sally
Björn Kristiansson
Marie-Louise Mannervall	...	Woman in village
Hildur Lindberg	...	Mother's Friend
Stig Lokrantz
Olle Nordlander
Marshall McDough	...	(as Marshal Mc Donagh)
Gunnar Palm
Pamela Pethö-Galantai	...	Young Frigga
Lennart Robertsson
Hans-Eric Stenborg

Storyline

Frigga lives with her parents on their farm. Unable to speak after being horrifically raped by an elderly man when she was young, her parents spend the majority of their money on speech therapy classes for their daughter in the hope that one day, she will speak again. One day, Frigga misses the bus to get to her speech therapy class. She accepts a ride off a suave looking gentlemen named Tony who pulls up beside her. Once they are in town, he takes her for a meal. Afterwards, he takes Frigga back to what appears to be his bachelor pad. He gives her wine that has probably been drugged, as she passes out after drinking it. The man then takes no time in bringing a crooked doctor in to get her fixed on high class heroin. After announcing to Frigga that she is now dependent on heroin and cannot last more than 48 hours without it, she must work as a prostitute for him. Frigga, obviously not thrilled by this news, attempts escape twice, but to no avail. On getting her very first client, she ...

---

Plot Keywords:

revenge | heroin | martial arts | brothel | death | 

---

Taglines:

First they took her speech...then her sight...When they were finished she used what was left of her for her own frightening kind of REVENGE!

---

Genres:

Action | Thriller

---

Details

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish

Release Date:

5 June 1974 (USA)

Also Known As:

Hooker's Revenge

Filming Locations:

Drottningholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company Credits

Production Co:

BAV Film, United Producers

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min 80 min (heavily cut) 82 min (R-rated) 92 min (R-rated cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Bo Arne Vibenius made this film to cover up the financial failure of his first film. His intention was to create "a commercial-as-hell crap-film". The actors had a clause in their contracts to ensure that they would not reveal who the director of the film really was.

---

Goofs

When the police car runs over a piece of grass between two roads, you can clearly see tire tracks from earlier takes.

---

Connections

Featured in 42nd Street Forever, Volume 1 (2005)

User Reviews

Torment plus violence equals up to fierce revenge

THRILLER: THEY CALL HER ONE EYE (Bo Arne Vibenius - Sweden 1974).

This is pretty dark and distressing stuff. Apparently Sweden does have some other cinematic export products besides Ingmar Bergman and Bo Widerberg. This strange and quite original exploitation gem by Bo Arne Vibenius recently got a little more attention (if only a little) because of Quentin Tarantino, who paid homage to this film with KILL BILL and called it "the roughest revenge picture ever made". For an exploitation-flick, it's not that rough at all, but it definitely has some very potent scenes but nothing really gory, and most of all, the blood and the fighting look so deliciously fake, I doubt anyone could take it as very disturbing. Most of the time, nothing really happens at all, but there's a certain atmosphere that makes the film strangely compelling.

A young girl (Christina Lindberg) is growing up mute after a childhood sexual assault and spends years working on a remote farm. After missing the bus one day, she is picked up by a seedy well-dressed man who kidnaps the girl, gets her addicted to heroine, cuts her left-eye out, and forces her into slavery and prostitution. Any other girl would give in, but not this one. She seeks vengeance, and, fortunately, has the weekends off, so she can learn martial arts, race-driving and military weaponry.

In some earlier comments I noticed people were put off by some hardcore pornography, which there was in the earlier DVD-release under the title THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE. Distributor Synapse decided to release the tamer, but still quite brutal, American version THRILLER: THEY CALL HER ONE EYE, which is the only version I have seen. I cannot imagine hardcore pornography would improve the film, so I suggest watching this "softer" version instead.

This is not a film for those who want fast-paced action, snappy dialog or basic storytelling and since the main character is a mute girl who doesn't have a single line in the entire film, it does require some patience. And don't expect any ingenious fight scenes because the girl learned martial arts. The fight scenes are filmed in extreme slow-motion, quite tedious. The film also bares distinction in having a very strange sound mix by Ralph Lundsten, who composed a very memorable music score that one distinctly associates with this film, quite unique. Needless to say, the film was made on a shoestring, but Vibenius does show cinematic flair in the use of locations (on Öland) and some truly magnificent shots. What about that shot with the camera on top of a police car between the two sirens? Sheer beauty!

Hard to compare this film to anything I've seen. Well, it's a Swedish revenge-flick, so how many of these are there? It's unlike anything made before at the time (and up till now, supposedly). A film with some

• mostly budget-related - shortcomings, but by any means, a genuine

original.

Camera Obscura --- 7/10