Thriller: A Cruel Picture

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.

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.

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

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.

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