Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973) User Reviews

Madeline Marauds!

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 13 March 2016]

Exploitation cinema in all its glory, or not, depending on your own personal peccadilloes! Directed, written and produced by Bo Arne Vibenius, Thriller - en grym film (AKA: They Call Her One Eye) is an infamous picture for a number of reasons, reasons that would take a whole page to write about. So use your mouse and google it because this review isn't interested in dabbling in such fare.

Plot sees a young Madeline raped by a paedophile and rendered mute by the experience. Into early adulthood and Madeline (played superbly by soft core porn starlet Christinia Lindberg) unwisely takes up the offer of a lift from the odious Tony (Heinz Hopf). Pretty soon she's addicted to heroin and working as a prostitute. However, Madeline is biding her time, for she has plans, plans that spell doom for all her abusers.

Does this film have artistic merit? Absolutely! In fact if you take out the inserted pornographic close-ups, which are pointless since we already know what Madeline is going through (a supposed marketing tool of the era apparently...) then this is a kick-ass film. It's a two parter, where the first half shows all of Madeline's misery, with sexual disturbance and body horror, then we switch to Madeline's fight back, where we get one of the coolest anti-heroines of 70s exploitation. She's sporting an eye patch, a glorious black trench coat, and weapons, oh yes! There are weapons, hands, guns and cars, oh my! It's here where Vibenius asks the question about justifiable revenge, whilst the super slow-mo approach to the violence will either be viewed as indulgent or classy (I'm with the latter camp).

It is what it is, grungy and grimy, operating in a specialist niche of cinema, but worthy in that it didn't conform, and it has proved influential. It's just not a date movie or something to watch with you mom! Right, I'm off for a bath. 7/10

compelling fable of abuse and revenge

[fertilecelluloid · 7/10 · 24 December 2004]

The gorgeous nymph Christina Lindberg is a mute woman who is abducted, drugged and forced into sexual servitude by a slick criminal.

Notable for its hardcore sex sequences which, in my humble opinion, lend great gravity to Lindberg's unfortunate personal situation, this revenge drama has a measured, moderate pace and is quite compelling.

Titled THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE in some markets because our heroine does get her eye poked out by her captor, the film has rarely been seen uncut until the advent of Synapse Films' recent DVD.

Some scribes have complained that the hardcore sexual material ruins the film. I don't see any basis for this complaint. The hardcore honestly portrays the level of abuse Lindberg receives.

The revenge section of THRILLER is labored and stylized. There's no clear catharsis and there's no joy for the avenging angel.

Director Bo A Vebenius also wrote and produced.

Though called "the roughest revenge movie ever made" by Quentin Tarantino, it is not particularly rough compared to fare such as FORCED ENTRY, CAPTURED FOR SEX 2 or ZOOM UP: RAPE SITE.

It is an art-house revenge pic that is well worth seeing. I'm not sure I'd want to re-see it regularly, though. It does runs slow.

Very Good Rape/Revenge Film

[EVOL666 · 8/10 · 15 September 2005]

THRILLER is a very well done rape/revenge film in the same vein as LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. The storyline is different but the results are the same...

Girl is raped as a child which causes her to be mute. She is picked up by a slick-talking guy and taken out for dinner and drinks. Back at his house, he drugs her and shoots her up with heroin for several days, so by the time he allows her to wake up out of her heroin-stupor, she is an addict. At that point she is turned-out as a prostitute and given some cash and drugs as "payment". She is given some free time to herself, where she uses the money earned to take karate,shooting, and driving classes. Needless to say, when she becomes proficient enough in these disciplines, she uses her newly honed skills to go after those that did her wrong...

Christina Lindberg is excellent as the beautiful and seemingly innocent looking mute girl. She is a real pleasure to look at, and the fact that she's naked through a good portion of the film doesn't hurt either. There is some "controversy" surrounding this film due to a couple of hardcore sex scenes (obviously not Ms. Lindberg, unfortunately...) that appear to be cut from a bad European porno. The scenes are not necessary for the film but were obviously added to heighten the shock value of the film overall. Other than those few scenes, and the famous scalpel-in-the-eye scene, the violence in THRILLER is relatively tame by exploitation/horror standards. Overall a really good film, if you are into the rape/revenge genre - I think it's always cool to see a strong, sexy, female lead who kicks ass, one of the reasons that I gravitate toward this type of film. The eyeball and sex scenes may be a little much for the casual movie-goer, more "extreme" fans should like this one. Recommended...8.5 out of 10

NOTE: Synapse films now has a "Vengeance" addition in a yellow box (original cover is red) that is the same film minus the XXX scenes.

Mesmerizing if not perfect

[Blaise_B · 25 October 2002]

After hearing all the hype about this film...the latest notorious Eurotrash cult film making the rounds...has to be seen to be believed...sex and violence, sex and violence, etc., I finally got hold of a copy of it and was almost afraid that with all the anticipation I'd just be disappointed. To add to that, the copy I got was of crappy quality as I discovered when I started watching it--the opening credits were so blurry I couldn't read them--and the whole affair started to look like nothing more than the chore necessary to get the idea of finally seeing this film out of my head.

All this apprehension disappeared quickly as I got sucked into this simple yet very engaging story. We all know it's about a chick with one eye who picks up a shotgun and exacts revenge on her abusers, another entry into a sub-genre that needs no introduction, and that's what I expected, just another entry into this sub-genre with maybe enough explicit footage to give it the aforementioned notoriety, which alone does not a good film make. What I didn't expect was the atmosphere, the occasional insight (witness an early semi-rape scene involving rape-by-camera), the genuinely creepy close-ups of leering, panting men and all the other quirks that make this such a neat little flick. There is a lot of experimental sort of storytelling in this movie, as I guess was the style of the time (early seventies), and some of it is neat and some of it is downright annoying. But the overall effect, aided in no small part by the music, and aided also by the main character's inability to speak (had to have influenced Ms. .45, which came later) as well as the fact that I don't speak Swedish and this film is neither dubbed nor subtitled, is one of being underwater in a very polluted river. And that seems perfectly appropriate, since figuratively that's the story of the protagonist's life.

The close-up hardcore porn footage is used to better effect than I've ever seen such footage used, as it is supposed to be disturbing and sickening (anyone who thinks about impersonal images like that when they think about real sex, the good kind, has got to be a few beers short of a case). However, it is somewhat over-used. There are some good scenes of drawn-out, methodical drug-administering, shotgun-sawing, martial arts training, etc. That give the film, at times, an edge of realism. This realism is shattered, however, by scenes of cars exploding at the slightest impact and the nails-on-a-chalkboard slo-mo shooting scenes (not just slo-mo, sloooooooooo moooooooooo). Comparing this to Peckinpah is like comparing Green Day to the Stooges.

However, the entire film was redeemed for me by the last couple of sequences...one scene of her walking, all clad in black with her eyepatch and shotgun, amidst some shacks by a pier was straight out of a very dark western. The whole look of the film, especially the outdoor footage, is stark and desolate. Makes me want to go to Sweden. I was not let down by the last killing...the guy deserved that and more...it's a testament to the sort of infectuous quality of this film and the surprising abilities of porn star Christina Lindberg that I cared that much and even savored what happens to this guy. I've never actually savored the film re-enactment of the torture of a human being before seeing this film. More important than that, though, were the stark landscapes and windy, desolate atmosphere of the whole last sequence. "One-eye"'s cold-as-ice serenity as she sits and waits for her macabre plan to take effect is more satisfying than any of what she's waiting for.

All this stark imagery, simplicity and symbolism, I think, makes this film more of a subversive feminist allegory than any other of its type that I've seen; because it is at times almost mythic, it doesn't have to be taken literally. It doesn't have to be about pimps kidnapping girls and force-feeding them drugs, it doesnt have to be about shot guns. It does make me wonder how Christina Lindberg felt about the film, and what she did after.

One more thing: does a black-leather-clad, shotgun toting avenger driving around in a cop car through barren countryside remind you of anything?

Definitely check this out if you're not squeemish.

Torment plus violence equals up to fierce revenge

[Camera-Obscura · 10 October 2006]

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

Gritty Swedish revenge thriller.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 17 February 2005]

Girls are kidnapped by a sadistic pimp,turned into heroin addicts and dumped into a brothel,there to suffer hideous mistreatment in the hands of sweating,overweight customers.A mute girl Madeleine(Christina Lindberg),escapes and finally exterminates her tormentors with a sawed-off shotgun."Thriller:A Cruel Picture" is a notorious Swedish exploitation film which has a strange,almost dreamy feeling.The killings are long and bloody,so I was enthralled.The use of extreme slow motion during death scenes is certainly impressive.Christina Lindberg is simply excellent as a mute girl who becomes a killing machine.The most controversial aspect about "Thriller:A Cruel Picture",aside from the bloody violence,is the presence of several ugly hard-core sex scenes that show the girl's prostitution work in graphic detail.So if you are a fan of grindhouse exploitation stuff give this film a look.Check out also "Breaking Point" by Bo Arne Vibenius which is even more pornographic and demented.7 out of 10.

A review that DOESN'T mention a certain Hollywood director/fan-boy.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 18 December 2014]

Complete with gratuitous hardcore insert shots and cadaver eyeball mutilation, 'Thriller–A Cruel Picture' certainly earns its reputation as a true exploitation classic. Unfortunately, a drawn out final third, featuring some clumsy action scenes and the occasional unintentionally funny moment, ultimately drains the movie of some of its power.

Beautiful Swedish star Christina Lindberg plays Madeleine, a young mute woman who is kidnapped, hooked on heroin, and then forced to work as a prostitute. After clawing her first customer in the face, she is punished by Tony, her sadistic captor, who, in a particularly nasty scene, uses a scalpel to blind her in one eye (this realistic moment was reputedly achieved with the use of an actual dead body!).

After her injury has healed, Madeleine returns to work, with an eye-patch to hide her injury, and reluctantly complies with Tony's demands, sexually satisfying a variety of sleazy clients (bonus sleaze points are awarded here for inter-cutting graphic penetration shots with those of Ms. Lindberg, to make it appear as though she took part in the adult action).

As a reward for her good behaviour, Madeleine is given two wraps of heroin a day, a percentage of her takings, and Monday's off (a pension plan is not offered!).

However, after the suspicious disappearance of her friend, fellow 'hooker' Sally (who vanishes, leaving behind a blood-soaked bed), the one-eyed, smack-addicted beauty decides to get even with Tony, her abusers, and anyone else who has given her grief. She spends her free days learning self-defence, extreme driving, and marksmanship, and, once she is proficient at all three, embarks on her mission to exact bloody revenge.

Everything that leads up to Madeleine eventually kicking ass is extremely well done and delightfully sordid, just as an exploitation film should be. The pace is leisurely at the beginning, but never bores, with the sex, drugs and violence all explicitly depicted. Plus, the delightful Lindberg spends a lot of her time naked.

Where Thriller does suffer is in its latter scenes, where a shotgun toting, leather-coat and eye-patch wearing Madeleine blasts her victims to kingdom come. Director Bo Arne Vibenius opts to film most of the shootings in such excruciatingly drawn-out slow motion that it's possible to pop out to the kitchen, fix a sarnie, make a pot of tea, and still get back to your seat before the body hits the floor. Imagine the gun-fights of Peckinpah or Woo at a quarter of the speed, but nowhere near as stylish, and you'll have an idea of what I mean.

A final act of revenge is set in a suitably bleak environment and ends the film as one would expect—with 'one-eye' settling the score with Tony, in a slow and painful manner. Madeleine is seen driving towards the horizon as the credits roll.

woulda been a lot better without the porn inserts

[movieman_kev · 12 November 2004]

After being sexually molested as a small child, Frigga (the beautiful Christina Lindberg) becomes mute. Fast forward about 15 years, and after missing a bus to go to her therapy she accepts a ride from a shady character. Before long she's reduced to being a heroin addict with one eye (courtesy of her new pimp when she claws the face of her first trick). After a montage of her getting trained in guns, karate and driving as well as some ill-advised hardcore porn shots, she gets her revenge.

Let's start with what I liked about this film. Christina Linberg is very appealing, the ending is pretty damn good and i DID enjoy the film overall. What I din't like about the movie is those hard-core porn inserts which detract from the flow of the film and were NOT needed, the fact that EVERY fight was in sllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww motion bored me to no end, Despina Tomazani looked like a post-op transvestite as the lesbian trick, that upset me. But as I said all in all a solid exploitation film.

My Grade: B-

Synapse DVD Extras: TV spot; Theatrical trailer; "Thriller" trailer; double-bill trailer for "Hooker's Revenge (the reissue title for this film) and "Photographer's Models" ( the nonsensical reissue title of "House of Whipcord"); some outtakes; a few photo montages; a "story in pictures" segment that runs by at lightning speed; and cast and crew filmographies

Has cruelty ever been this dull?

[Jonny_Numb · 3/10 · 6 January 2008]

A first viewing of something as hopelessly over-hyped as "Thriller--A Cruel Picture" is a guaranteed setup for disappointment on some level--I'm just stunned that it failed to deliver on ANY level. In the opening scene, a little girl is raped by an oogy old man, is rendered mute by the experience, and develops into a Lolita-esquire teen living on her grandparents' farm; one day she misses a bus and is accosted by a well-dressed man who's really an upscale pimp; the pimp cuts out her left eye when she refuses a john, and then becomes compliant, saving up her cash for karate/shooting/self-defense lessons, weapons, and heroin (the pimp's got her hooked, you see). What should have been a rollicking descent into madness and bloody revenge is instead a film that can't decide whether it wants to play at the artsy art-house or the sleazy grindhouse. "Thriller"'s shootouts and fistfights are filmed in (extreme) slo-mo, scored to bizarre ambient music--this technique might have carried an effect if we could relate to the heroine, but since we can't, it remains a purely aesthetic device that's all about broken bones, blood spatters, and boring the audience. The characters are shallow contrivances of the plot--we are given no reason to relate to anyone, and even our heroine (despite her distinctive eye-patch and black-leather "Matrix" garb) is an empty, unlikeable cipher, which is probably "Thriller"'s greatest flaw: even the crudest of '70s revenge pics (the superior "I Spit on Your Grave" and "Ms. 45" come to mind) manage to put us on the victim's side, even if we cannot completely condone their actions. As directed by Bo A. Vibenus, "Thriller" is a film distinctive only for its heavily stylized look and emotionally detached tone; the flirtations with such outré content as drug addiction, prostitution (including some pornographic inserts), and eye-for-an-eye revenge fall flat as a result. Too bad--this really could have been something exceptional. Instead, it's the type of film '70s college students probably bragged to their friends about seeing in an attempt to look "cool."

Slow, effective, but probably unrepeatable

[FilmFlaneur · 3 February 2005]

Vengeance, or so the saying goes, is a dish best served cold. This film certainly exemplifies this maxim, and in the process comes across as if Bergman had done Deathwish. (Thriller's director had actually worked as on Persona as an assistant, and indeed some of the Nordic glumness here reminds one of the greater director) Its one of those titles which, long unavailable to the interested viewer, provokes a huge amount of curiosity and its arrival on DVD with some useful extras, is to be welcomed. It also has the cool cachet of a recommendation by Quentin Tarantino, who for purposes of reference duly inserted a one-eyed assassin of his own into Kill Bill.

Seen today Thriller remains a striking film, even much of the shock value has evaporated - apart from the hard core sequences as the heroine, by now a unwilling heroine addict, is abused and degraded. These moments were a principal reason for the film's truncation for the States and elsewhere, even though now they seem part and parcel of the message, reinforcing the intimate distress of what is being done. In fact apart from the opening and discreetly filmed child rape, as well as the assault on Madeline's eyeball about a third of the way in, there's hardly much action at all - and which when it does appear, given director Vibenius' infatuation with slow-mo violence (interesting at first, avant garde when continued, a tad tedious when it carries on) tends to slow matters down considerably. Much of the fighting is done in this same manner, and while the drawn out bullet ballets piercing shirts lead to certain fascination, the technique also shows up the cheap special effects on offer, or distractingly emphasises the illogicality of bodies recoiling *into* bullets and actors reacting too slowly to the impact. But whether deliberately or not such trick effects distance the viewer from the emotions of events; instead the mechanics of retaliation and murder are drawn out in almost fetishistic fashion, just as Madeline will savour coldly the extended demise of Tony in the closing scenes.

On the plus side the deliberate nature of it all, and the slow build up to Madeline's revenge, gives the audience ample time to side with the central character and contemplate the stages of her increasing torment. And during the wait, her enforced silence communicates far more than acres of embittered dialogue might have. The result is a degree of audience sympathy that's quite a way from the usual exploitation product, and by virtue of the fact that sometimes less means more, accumulates considerably more dignity for the victim along the way. There's still plenty of 70's cheesy decor on show (Madeline's principal abuser and abductor, Tony, in particular recalls a sleazy Jason King) but the film is distinguished by its refusal to hurry and draws out the angst suffered by the main character with quiet understatement, an effective process which gets under the skin.

Its a film worth seeing for this rather unique flavour; whether or not it will repay repeated viewings is less certain as, apart from Christine Lindberg's stoic performance, non of the other actors make much of an impression. Director Vibernius, who apparently took on this production to pay for the flop of his last, only made one more film after this, the even more exploitative Breaking Point. In Thriller, where perhaps he succeeded for the only time in creating a near art house style for grind house subject matter, he also appears as a hot dog salesman.

'Special' in more than one way

[stamper · 6/10 · 23 April 2005]

Thriller is not your average film. It wasn't in 1974 and it isn't in 2005 (31 years later). I must say, that I find it hard to describe the film, although the plot is relatively simple. What makes it difficult to describe this film is the way it is presented. First of all, despite not being an adult film, there are a hand full of penetration scenes which neither arouse nor sicken, which are thus basically useless for the plot or entertainment (if ANY elaborate penetration-scene can actually add something to ANY film is another question). On the other side though, this there is little action in this one to qualify as an action film and I must admit that most action scenes are badly executed (the spontaneous combustion of cars being one example). The exception to this is the hand-combat scene at the docks, which is excellent. The shoot-outs on the other hand however are at times excruciatingly long and useless. On top of that, the film also suffers a bit from the lack of dialog, although I must honestly say, that the acting (especially by Christina Lindberg) was of such quality that you didn't feel like turning the film off (which is strange for an adult film IF this qualifies as one).

The film has other qualities as well though. I was especially baffled by the quality of the special effects and in some way I feel that the film actually deserves a spot in movie history. Despite being somewhat slow and really not action-packed, I feel that this film among the first female-lead action film ever made. I know credit is often given to Mrs. Weaver and Mr.Scott for that (Alien), but I think this one might be in for the race, don't you? Of course there are other films in that race as well, like Coffy, Foxy Brown and perhaps Cleopatra Jones, which I haven't seen, but this one ranks right up there as a female version of Death Wish. That fact alone and the fact that this is a cheap, slightly pornographic Swedish film make this one special - or maybe just a rarity. I just know what it certainly isn't, a must-see.

6,25 out of 10 (with a 6 given upon voting)

post scriptum: this film isn't cruel in any kind of way and really doesn't warrant a 20 minute cut to receive an R rating. The adult parts didn't last that long did they? If you're talking blood, Reservoir Dogs is much crueler if you ask me.

Disturbing slice of Swedish exploitation

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 6 August 2016]

THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE is a notorious exploitation film from Sweden which has been championed by none other than Quentin Tarantino. It's a rape-revenge thriller that sees an innocent young girl forced into becoming a heroin addict before being sold into prostitution. However, she trains in the martial arts and also learns how to use various weapons, which allows her to take revenge on the men (and women) who previously abused her.

I have to admit that rape revenge films aren't really my cup of tea as I find them far too sleazy to enjoy and THRILLER is certainly one of the sleaziest. It's a grim and slow-paced exercise in fear and humiliation that seems to reveal in violence meted out towards women in much the same way as LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, for example. As a film, it's not particularly proficient, with the drawn-out pace making it tough to sit through and plenty of dumb dialogue to drag it down further.

Christina Lindberg makes something of an iconic impression as the lead character although she plays it subdued for the most part, which I think works. The supporting cast are nothing to write home about. The violence, when it eventually arrives, is played out in extreme slow motion, which I thought was an effective way to do it. Unfortunately there's far too much in the way of depravity to get through first, including hardcore sex scenes and a scene involving a scalpel and an eyeball which I understand was performed on a real corpse. Yeah, it's not really the sort of film you can say you enjoyed, although you will want to take a cold shower afterwards.

the one-eyed pirate could have done better

[wvisser-leusden · 4/10 · 16 January 2009]

This film's subject, violence on females, lives on for the way it is presented: very directly.

Not holding back on anything, the viewer is confronted with hardcore porn and sadistic violence. Such as a close-up of deliberately destroying one's eye with a small knife.

All this cannot disguise that "Thriller" is a bad film. Its picturing, acting and plot could have been done much better. Should have been done much better in my view, due to the human & social sensitivity of its subject.

Nevertheless, this film primarily lives on for its pretty original main icon: the one-eyed 'pirate' Christina Lindberg. Showing herself in all stages of dress and undress.

Thriller: A Vast Disappointment

[Witchfinder-General-666 · 5/10 · 16 May 2008]

As an avid lover of 70s Exploitation cinema I was quite excited to finally see "Thriller - en grym film" (aka. "Thriller: A Cruel Picture"/"They Call Her One-Eye") of 1974, as it is a film that enjoys a certain cult-status among many exploitation lovers. Not in my book, however, as "Thriller" turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of recent months. I am an enthusiastic fan of ultra-violent and sleazy exploitation, so I'm not criticizing the film for being 'sick' of anything. On the contrary. the film isn't nearly as shocking or disturbing as it's hyped to be, but what really makes it disappointing is the fact that it lacks the slightest logic.

Frigga (Christina Lindberg) is a young girl living on a farm with her parents. After she was raped by an old man as a little girl, Frigga has ceased to talk and become a mute. In spite of the traumatic events in her childhood, she blindly trusts a sleazy guy named Tony, who offers to give her a ride into town, and henceforth forces her into prostitution. Tony writes letters to Friggas parents in her name, explaining that she doesn't love them any more. And her parents immediately believe the lies, and subsequently kill themselves - now that makes a lot of sense. But that's not all: Tony makes Frigga a heroin addict (in this film, heroin addicts die when they don't get a shot), he forces her into prostitution and even stabs one of her eyes out when she refuses to have sex with a customer. Yet, he never rapes her himself, he gives her a percentage of the money she earns him, and he even gives her a day off a week, on which she can do what she wants - and the day off as well as the money give her the opportunity to do karate- and shooting classes in order to plan her revenge...

I admit that the film has some strong points, but the storyline is about as illogical as it gets. Christina Lindberg became a minor sex-star in Exploitation cinema, but I'm not one of her fans. While some people find her hot, I think she just looks like a 15-year-old girl (which is too young for my tastes at least). This makes her quite predestined for her role here, however, as what makes this film interesting is Frigga's conversion from an innocent child-like young woman into a merciless, blood-thirsty avenger. Also, the idea with the eye-patch was pretty cool. So the film has its qualities, but it has at least as many faults. The supposed shock moments are in no way spectacular, and the (extremely) slow motion in any action sequence is more than tiresome. The (crappy) hardcore porn sequences, which were obviously done with other people, seem superfluous and terribly out of place. I have no problem whatsoever with porn sequences in non-porn films, and I do not find such sequences offensive or anything, but they simply don't fit in here, and they furthermore give the impression that director Bo Arne Vibenius saw no difference in making exploitation cinema or plain pornography. The 70s spawned quite a number of rape and revenge flicks, and while this is one of the most overrated ones it is also one of the dullest. The film has many similarities to Meir Zarchi's "I Spit On Your Grave" (aka. "Day Of The Woman", 1978), which is often bashed, but a deeply disturbing and great film that is a lot more recommendable than this one. It is also sometimes compared to Wes Craven'S 1972 revenge classic "The Last House On The Left", but these comparisons are not really justified, since it's the parents, not the victims, who take revenge there.

Overall, "Thiller" has its qualities, and it may be worth checking out for my fellow exploitation fans, but I advise to keep your expectations low, since the chances for being disappointed are high. I sure was.

Thriller Or: Revenge Of The Ginger Cyclops!

[newnoir · 21 February 2015]

The 1973 violent Swedish revenge film Thriller: A Cruel Picture, also known as They Call Her One Eye, greatly influenced Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill and you can see why even with only one eye.

The film has rather racy full-on penetration sex scenes, which were apparently popular at the time, done by body doubles, they actually work and match well intercut with the real actors performing simulated sex in something other than the usual dull missionary position movie sex scenes.

It's a quiet film with little or no score, set in a Swedish small town with perhaps the world's most ineffective police force and most unobservant neighbors ever, pay no attention to that shotgun killing across the road.

Gaps in logic galore in the story of an innocent young ginger girl left mute by a childhood rape who becomes addicted to heroin by a vicious pimp and enslaved into prostitution before honing her skills in hand-to-hand combat, guns and stunt driving before at long last taking her bloody revenge.

Ridiculous yet one of the better cult films I've seen.

doesn't live up to the promise of its premise *or* the amazing theatrical trailer

[Quinoa1984 · 4/10 · 23 November 2008]

"They Call Her One Eye" was the re-dubbed American version of what is in uncut Sweden known as "Thriller: A Cruel Picture". I wondered before turning on this movie, which is unrated on DVD in the US now with all (actually) gratuitous porn-style sex included, why Sweden isn't known more for X-rated exploitation flicks. By the end, or actually by the halfway point, I got it the idea of the lack of them, or at least their limited exposure in the states. The director of Thriller/They Call Her One Eye, Bo Arne Vibenius, obviously had far too lofty artistic aspirations to really competently pull off the more guilty-pleasure aspects to his own script. The elements are there for a reasonably kick-ass revenge picture, and it slowly but surely falls apart, piece by stupid or illogical or just way too subdued piece.

And the problem isn't very much with Christina Lindberg who, not without her own "assets" as they could be called physically, emotes just enough to break past her cement-faced profile that looks like cheap-imitation Bresson lead work (you know the kind if you've seen Au hasard Balthazar: stone-cold, wiped-out-by-life's-torments look). It's just with the general execution of the direction. By the main points to the plot this should be an exploitation-winner: a young woman, who as a girl was rendered mute after being raped by a blood-spitting old man, is entrapped by a pimp (who, save for hooking her on heroin, pimping her out, beat-downs and forcing her parents to commit suicide by sending fake letters of a runaway teen, isn't that bad a guy and even has his new worker sign forms in duplicate(!)). Then, little by little, as she saves up money, the now one-eyed "heroine" goes to karate classes, gets bad-ass driver training, and marksmanship tutorials, all leading up to what should promise to be some sweet, hard revenge on her pimp and former clientèle.

That is, what "should" promise. The actual modus operandi of the film is not exactly boring, but never more than that, and sometimes just about that. What's saddening is what could have been; just watching the trailer for the re-dubbed and re-cut version of the movie looks to be amazing and crazy and violent in just the right places for Z-movie geeks. But as it turns out, as it was with many a foreign import or otherwise, the trailer's promise is in and of itself complete: all you need to do is watch the trailer, ala Grindhouse, to get your dollars worth, which is zero. This saga of Madeliene's is directed with a dry air, very little music (and what music sounds like outtakes from the very first video game scores), and very bad performances from anyone who can actually bat an eyelash. Sometimes there is occasional fun like with the random car explosions, or the very sudden appearance of two thugs right by the pimp's desk.

But then other things show just how much of an artistic Hack (with a capital H) Vindeberg was, hence his very limited oeuvre: most prominent and horrific (after the fact of the terrible things one could call montages, the terribly spliced in porno clips that more than likely aren't with its female star, awkwardly long shots of Lindberg shooting up heroin or loading up a gun), after about an hour has passed, are what could be called shoot-outs by those who have been wandering a movie desert for 20 years with multiple mirages and delusions of film-speed grandeur. Practically every shoot-out or fight is filmed in ridiculously long slow-motion, as if the director were trying a rough version of "bullet-time", or even just thought that he was above the curve of someone like Werner Herzog who could actually use a long moment of slow-motion brilliantly in Woyzeck. Here, it becomes long, tedious, and negligible; you end up fast-forwarding during the shootouts just to make then look normal. Argh!

So, once again, another possibly ironic recommendation from il ultimo movie geek Quentin Tarantino who called it "the roughest revenge film ever made". Surely he must mean rough on the audience to endure, right?

Great

[Michael_Elliott · 14 March 2008]

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1974)

**** (out of 4)

At the start of the film a young girl is in the park playing with an older man who eventually molests her. Flash forward fifteen years and the girl, Madeleine (Christina Lindberg) is now a mute due to her attack and lives on a farm with her parents where she works around the house trying to make good with her life. She has to walk to the bus stop in order to get to town where she sees various doctors who are trying to help her but one day she misses the bus and makes the mistake of getting into the car with a suave man named Tony.

Tony takes her out to dinner and seems to be a nice guy just out for a good time but when they return to her house Tony drugs her and Madeleine eventually passes out. For the next week Tony forces heroin into Madeleine and after writing a note to her parents saying she has run away, Tony forces her into prostitution. To make matters even worse is that the heroin addiction is kicking in so she has no choice but to stay at the house and work so that she can have the heroin. The sexual abuse she suffers isn't bad enough because Tony also sends a message by gauging out her eyeball, which causes her to wear an eye patch and become known as "One Eye". As Madeleine continues to work, during the day she starts training in weapons as well as karate so that she can seek vengeance against all who has done her wrong.

Director Vibenius takes the film very seriously and he takes his time telling it, which could lead to boredom but that never happens here. Vibenius creates a very unique world that certainly looks like the 1970's but it seems like a land we've never seen. Much like Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, this film takes the viewer to a land and time that seems very distant but we are very familiar with everything going on. This film has its own time, space and rules and the viewer is just going along with the ride expecting anything to happen and anything usually does happen.

Unlike The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave, this film doesn't go for any shock value and instead keeps the story pretty straight throughout. That's not to say the violence and sex aren't over the top but they fit in with the story where they don't seem out of place and not once did I feel the director trying to go for shocks instead of telling the story. The violence in the film is certainly graphic, especially the scene where our female hero gets her eye ripped out. Legend has it that a real corpse was used to pull this stunt off and it certainly appears so. It's also clear that this here scene had an influence, camera wise, on Lucio Fulci's Zombie.

The rest of the violence, from a sawed off shotgun, contains all sorts of red blood flowing but this here is so poetically shot that it comes off in a romantic sense, which to me, is the director showing our hero getting a kick out of her revenge. Strange sound effects are added to the slow motion violence and the beauty of how all of this is edited together again sets this film apart from all others. There's also some hardcore sex scenes used in the film, which we could debate on for years. Some feel hardcore sex scenes take away from the story while others feel it can help matter. I'm usually one who feels the hardcore sex takes away from a film (Jess Franco's Doriana Gray for example) but like the violence, the sex scenes never take away from the story and while they are shocking to see, to me it's just the director adding more strangeness to the film and giving us a better idea of the torture our hero is going through.

Christina Lindberg gives a remarkable performance, which is something else you wouldn't expect from a film like this. Just look at the scene in the restaurant before she gets taken advantage of. Her innocence shines through like no other performance that pops into my mind and what's even remarkable is how much we can feel her thoughts without her having to say a word. Lindberg has become a cult favorite due to her beautiful looks but she isn't a slouch of an actor either.

Thriller: A Cruel Picture is a very mean and brutal film but at the same time it is so poetically beautiful that it comes off more like a Bergman film that a trashy grindhouse film that we've seen countless times. I've seen dozens of these rape/revenge tales and this one here is certainly among the best and most unique out of all of them. This is a film that has been talked about for ages but rarely seen and I certainly hope folks check the film out and if they do, I'm sure the cult following is going to get a lot bigger and the film certainly deserves all the hype we've been hearing for years.

Yikes

[billcr12 · 3/10 · 10 November 2022]

I do not know where to begin. Christina Lindberg plays a mute woman who is forced into prostitution after being given regular shots of heroin in order to make her an addict who is in ned of daily fixes by her pimp, Tony.

He sets her up with a series of men and one lesbian woman and she obliges them as she plots her revenge.

Somehow, on her days off she has enough cash to hire a karate instructor, race car driver and weapons expert.

Why her pimp would allow her such freedoms is never explained.

In between, in the unedited version there are a few scenes of explicit sex. Apparently, Ms. Lindberg was in no way involved with those XXX moments.

The acting is horrendous, as is the editing. The lead actress receives the three here for her body.

She's totally nuts. She should be in a nuthouse.

[lastliberal · 6/10 · 10 March 2009]

I glanced at a couple of Bergman films the other day, but couldn't get into them. This film shows that there is something other than Bergman out of Sweden.

I heard that this was a predecessor to Baise-moi, and I wanted to see Christina Lindberg, who I watched recently in Sex & Fury. If you are not looking for a Baise-moi type movie, then there is a R Rated version of this film called They Called Her One Eye.

I thought for a moment I was watching Bergman's The Silence, as there was no dialog. Madeliene (Christina Lindberg) never does talk in this film. Things don't move very fast either. It is excruciatingly slow.

She is taken by a scumbag (Heinz Hopf) that hooks her on heroin and has her prostitute herself after he stabbed one of her eyes out.

She gets Mondays off, and apparently, she manages to use them to learn karate, driving and shooting. Of course, she is still hooked while doing this, which stretches credulity.

The sex scenes are raw, and you do not know if she is using a double. Maybe they were just porno clips spliced into the film.

Once she is ready, she gets a shotgun, saws it off and seeks revenge. The blood effects were really pathetic. Some of the things just didn't make sense along the way. I guess that is why Bo Arne Vibenius only had a three-film career.

The Darkest, Grittiest of Exploitation

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 29 March 2016]

A young woman (Christina Lindberg), 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.

In Daniel Ekeroth's book on Swedish exploitation movies, it is revealed that the producers took out a huge life insurance policy on star Christina Lindberg, as real ammunition was used in the action sequences, and that she was asked to inject saline solution during the drug scenes. A real corpse was also used for an eye-gouging scene, which continues to offend people. This is, without doubt, among the darkest, grittiest exploitation films ever made. It is easy to see how this was such a strong inspiration on Tarantino's "Kill Bill".

If there is one thing I would change, however, it would be the removal of the pornographic scenes. They add nothing to the film, and because they were spliced in after the fact, really do not represent a true part of the original film.

Bang! Bang! My Baby Shot Me Down...

[azathothpwiggins · 6 October 2020]

As revenge films go, THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE is near the top of the list. It's also rather bizarre in its presentation, infused with real, ultra-graphic sex scenes, as well as an actual cadaver used for the "eyeball" scene.

Christina Lindberg blazes as Madeline, going from innocent youth to unstoppable killing machine with ease. This is a savage, early example of the female revenge movie, complete with reprehensible villains, a tough-as-rusty-nails avenging angel, and an ultimate showdown. Genre fans will love every precious second! The firearms, martial arts, and evasive automobile training are glorious, as is the slow-motion "cop takedown" sequence!

As for the hardcore sex scenes, they do become redundant, but are perfunctory enough to get the idea of monotonous degradation across. They have more to do with animalistic emptiness than lust. If these scenes are a problem, the edited version of the film leaves them out, and is still great...

Yep -- it is cruel

[BandSAboutMovies · 8/10 · 22 October 2017]

The poster says it all: "The movie that has no limits of evil." When people talk about grimy, evil pictures, this is the one they're talking about. Quentin Tarantino called this "the roughest revenge movie ever," and that's including I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left, one would suppose. After all, Elle Driver in his Kill Bill directly takes her look from this film, with outfits that match her eyepatch.

Frigga (Christina Lindberg, Teenage Playthings, Exposed) is a simple farm girl who's been silent since she was a kid, thanks to being raped. Her loving parents spend all of their money to try and get her voice back with speech therapy. One day, she misses the bus and ends up going on a date with Tony, who seems like a real ladykiller. Turns out he is — he gets her hooked on heroin, telling her that she needs it every 48 hours if she wants to live. To pay him back, she has to become a prostitute for him.

Frigga — possibly named for Odin's wife (and Odin is one eyed, after all) — cannot be tamed. She escapes twice and scars the face of the first john who tries to sleep with her. As punishment, Tony takes her eye — a scene shot with the cadaver of a young girl who had committed suicide. Remember what I said above — this film takes no prisoners.

Tony has sent a letter home to her parents, telling them she hated them and would never be back. In answer, they both commit suicide. Add in the death of Frigga's only friend, fellow prostitute Sally, and it's time for revenge. She starts charging more for whatever her clients want to do to her, all so that on every Monday, she can learn the skills she'll need to kill everyone and everything.

What follows is a leather overcoat clad Lindberg — a gorgeous creature of pure hatred and violence — destroying everything. Even two cops who try and take her out are decimated in slow motion in a tour de force scene that Rob Zombie could only dream of shooting — sound dropped out, violence given to full display. The film flirts with art while keeping both feet mired in exploitation — there's a lesbian scene and in some versions, a hardcore insert — but gorgeous shots of police sirens with electronic music droning mark this as just as much masterpiece as masturbatory fodder.

Finally, after killing all of her clients, Frigga challenges Tony to a duel. Getting the better of him, she buries him in a hole, ties a rope around his neck and like some cowboy in a spaghetti western, makes a horse run away, killing him. She watches, mute, as the man who ruined her life finally dies. What can be left after this? She has become Shiiva, Death, the destroyer of worlds. Her family destroyed. Her friend dead. Even the police, who could not help her, dead at her hand. She drives the cop car into the distance, sirens blaring as wind and sound fills the soundtrack.

This isn't a movie for everybody. But it's why I love movies — it's an experience. I can't recommend it to everyone, but if you're here and reading this, you know that you'll probably love it. Heck — you've probably already seen it.

Lindberg — who claims herself that she was a horrible actress — goes all in here. She injected water and saline into her veins for the heroin shots. She learned how to fight. Hell, she got arrested after practicing shooting her shotgun — in public no less. She owns the screen in this.

Read more at http://bit.ly/2iqIpEn

THRILLER – A CRUEL PICTURE (1974) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 10 October 2004]

Yesterday, I watched this much-hyped rape/revenge film (particularly in the wake of Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL [2003/4] saga) via Synapse's excellent DVD presentation. Of course, I had never seen it before and actually I'd only heard about it only recently (when Synapse first announced it for release).

Anyway, I felt it was pretty good and thus fully deserving of its cult status. Still, for all its undoubtedly exploitative qualities, grindhouse aficionados may well be put off more by the film's extremely languid pace (a distinct Scandinavian trait, I might add) than by any of its would-be shocking images; it has an overall pretentious feel to it, in keeping with the 'typical' art-house stuff, which is really not that surprising when considering that writer-director Bo Arne Vibenius had served his apprenticeship with the likes of Ingmar Bergman! Incidentally as I watched the film (in its original Swedish language), I was reminded more of Bergman's own rape/revenge drama, THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960), than its direct American counterparts THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978)! Even so, THRILLER remains consistently interesting throughout mainly due to Christina Lindberg's quietly powerful and iconic performance but also, I feel, because it's a reasonably well-made film in its own right.

Its moments of sex and violence are not as over-the-top as they've been played up to be: the former, especially, is restricted to occasional (but always brief) insert shots – as opposed to the lengthy hardcore footage of, say, Walerian Borowczyk's LA BETE (1975), Jess Franco's DORIANA GREY (1976) or Nagisa Oshima's AI NO CORRIDA (1976) – and this is done in order to accentuate the degrading state to which the child-like Lindberg has been reduced. As for the numerous slow-motion action sequences, well, I think that they serve the purpose of demonstrating the girl's emotional release at finally being able to have her revenge; still, they do go on for an excessively long time and aren't quite as creatively edited as those in the films of Sam Peckinpah (which probably inspired them to begin with). Interestingly, I almost preferred the alternate harbor fight presented among the DVD extras, which substantially diminishes this rather flamboyant effect to the point where you can actually follow what is going on with Lindberg and her opponents!

This is not really a film where one needs to study the logic of the plot but it does stumble, so to speak, over a few points – so I'll just mention them and move on: even if we only see a couple of Lindberg's clients throughout the picture (due no doubt to the limits imposed by the budget), it's feasible that there were a lot more during the whole time she stayed at her pimp's home – which is why I deem it highly unlikely that the latter would go to the trouble of informing any of these about Lindberg's unexpected revenge-seeking odyssey, let alone assemble them in a public place for just this purpose!; we never learn how Lindberg (a disfigured mute prostitute, mind you) is able to organize her rigorous training sessions so easily without once arousing the pimp's suspicion (and it just happens that none of these instructors think of taking advantage of her just like practically every other character in the film has!); also, why does Lindberg linger in the harbor (after having offed the two hit men dispatched by the pimp to eliminate her) awaiting the arrival of the police…when she knows the main culprit of her sad fate is still at large?!

One last thing: I'm certainly glad that Don May Jr. and Synapse Films have gone ahead and released this film on DVD in the face of their ongoing (and much publicized) legal battle with Bo Arne Vibenius, whose generally unprofessional attitude in this whole matter can only be described as shameful.

Synapse's DVD transfer is highly satisfactory to my eyes (and which, reportedly, is a vast improvement over previous editions of the film) while the supplements, though not exactly bountiful, complement the main feature very nicely indeed.

The creepiest thing about this film is in the details

[Andreas_W333 · 7/10 · 15 August 2021]

You might ask yourself why there was a clause in the filmworkers contracts that they must keep the real director a secret. Well, it is on the surface a very provocative and nasty swedish film for its time and even by today's standards. I do however know a really disturbing reason, which was presented by one of the main workers on this film on a movie buff gathering in Sala (Sweden) when this cast or crew (I won't give the name) attended as a guest. The thing is, the scene with the eye, is real - performed on a fresh corpse (which was a suicide victim which gave automatic permission for an autopsy) at the Karolinska hospital supposedly, and the director had contacts who granted him to film the exercise on the eye in connection to the autopsy. This is gruesome stuff, and probably the real reason why the director still wants to remain obscure and doesn't give interviews. However, he wasn't alone, and in Spain they did several films with real gore due to the lack of a special effects talent. Javier Aguirre's "Hunchback from morgue" is one more known example, where the star Paul Naschy began severing a real head before he couldn't finish it - but they kept the frames where he cuts half-way, and they finished the scene with a prop head. This is described in Naschy's autobiography as well as his commentary track on the german special edition dvd. So, back to Thriller. It is indeed a shocking film and an admirable piece of film history - just see what has come out of it with Kill Bill and all. Worth mentioning is the beautiful score by Ralph Lundsten, which gives the film a dreamlike and surreal quality - and something you can see in all of Vibenius films is his great talent to direct dreamlike and surreal scenes. I have all of his films and I happened to see the first one when I was 4 or 5 something. His two following works however, I am happy to have seen later as a young adult. Gosh, you gotta be a special guy if you first do a movie for kids and then move on to Thriller and Breaking Point. We will never see an official box set with these three films, safe to say.

"Is to the sky, is to the sky, is to the sky now,Searching for the ground with my good eye closed."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 22 April 2020]

In the run-up to Christmas 2018, family friend Guy Morgan (who tragically passed away from a brain haemorrhage at just age 46 in March 2019) talked about a flick he was keen on seeing,that I picked up in the X-Mas sales,and he borrowed. Despite hearing Guy praise the movie a number of times,I never got round to playing it, until ICM's Nordic cinema viewing challenge led to me eyeing one eye.

View on the film:

Stating later that the only reason he made this after his first movie flopped to recover losses by doing "A commercial-as-hell crap-film" (that's the spirit!) and putting a clause in the cast contract to not reveal his real name, writer/director "Alex Fridolinski" (real name: Bo Arne Vibenius) & cinematographer Andreas Bellis poke Frigga at full force in the eye with a scuzz Grindhouse atmosphere, of sleazy, violent sex, eyefuls of skin on show,a real human corpse (!), and the Grindhouse classics: cars randomly blowing up and goons falling into empty cardboard boxes at a warehouse.

Holding the drug-addled Frigga hostage in a cheap set of Tony's pad, all shot in one medium-shot and drab lighting, (clearly all filmed in one day) Vibenius thankfully unleashes Frigga (the name of Odin's wife) into the wild to get revenge on Tony and his clients who abused her, who each get hit with the super cool trench-coat wearing Frigga unleashing her revenge in the surprisingly artful use of slow-motion, which Vibenius uses to turn each high kick and point blank head-shot into a ballet move for this black swan.

Rolling her sleeves up so much that the producers took a out a huge life insurance policy due to the two months of pre-production martial arts and gun training leading to real ammo being used, fittie Christina Lindberg gives a no holds barred Turn, performing each deadly revenge attack with swift procession.

Injecting saline solution as Frigga sinks into a heroin addiction, and saying hardly any word of dialogue for the majority of the film, Lindberg beautifully brings out in her washed out, withdrawn face the horror Tony has inflicted, which Lindberg gradually toughens up into a deadly gaze towards a cruel picture.