{"id":2715,"date":"2024-08-24T14:53:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T14:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2715"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:46:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T18:46:54","slug":"thriller-a-cruel-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/24\/thriller-a-cruel-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"Thriller: A Cruel Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Thriller: A Cruel Picture <\/strong>(1973)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International Pictures (US)\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (strong graphic violence, graphic nudity, explicit hardcore sex, some language, graphic drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bo Arne Vibenius (as \u201cAlex Fridolinski\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bo Arne Vibenius\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ralph Lundsten\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Andrew Bellis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 5, 1974 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Christina Lindberg, Heinz Hopf, Despina Tomazani, Per-Axel Arosenius, Gunnel Wadner, Solveig Andersson, Bjorn Kristiansson, Marie-Louise Mannervall, Hildur Lindberg, Stig Lokrantz, Olle Nordlander, Marshall McDonagh, Gunnar Palm, Pamela Patho-Galantai, Hans-Eric Stenborg.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AKA: They Call Her One Eye and Hooker’s Revenge<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I never would have seen the Swedish exploitationer Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong> if not for Quentin Tarantino\u2019s referencing of it in the Kill Bill duology. Daryl Hannah\u2019s eyepatch-wearing assassin is obviously modeled after the heroine of this nasty revenge picture that combines strong violence and hardcore sex scenes that definitely would have earned it an X rating.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Originally banned in its home country, director Bo Arne Vibenius had to trim Thriller: A Cruel Picture <\/strong>down to 82 minutes before the censorship board finally reversed its position. That\u2019s the version that got released in the US about a year later under the title They Call Her One Eye. I can\u2019t begin to imagine how it would have played with all the explicit material removed. I was actually shocked by its graphic sexual content. You don\u2019t expect to see penetration and ejaculation shots in a violent thriller. To be fair, they were edited in post-production to cash in on the trend of pornographic films from Nordic countries like Sweden and Denmark.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Life has been rather cruel to Madeleine (Lindberg). She was raped as a young child by a disgusting old man, an ordeal that left her mute. The daughter of simple dairy farmers, it\u2019s unlikely she\u2019ll ever speak again no matter how many doctors she sees. One day while waiting for a bus, she\u2019s lured into a fancy car by a charming stranger named Tony (Hopf) who wines, dines and drugs her. The sleaze turns out to be a pimp who gets her hooked on heroin then forces her to turn tricks in order to keep feeding her habit. He also sends a forged letter to her parents informing them of her decision to leave home and never return. He renames her Frigga and makes it clear she has no choice but to cooperate, a point he gets across by cutting out one of her eyes with a scalpel after she disfigures a client\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After her despondent parents commit suicide, Frigga decides to take back her life. She makes an escape plan funded by money she earns from providing additional services to clients. Judging by the indignities that occur in her room, they\u2019re among the lowest forms of human life in Sweden. She takes lessons in martial arts, shooting and driving. She also finds a new drug source. Once she has everything all set, she begins her bloody mission of vengeance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I like Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong>. It\u2019s a good exploitation flick. It doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s flawless. It\u2019s NOT. It has some humongous plot holes. Let\u2019s take a look. Obviously, no kidnapper is going to allow their captive a day off to roam free and do their own thing like Tony does with Frigga. What if they go to the cops? In this particular case, it can be explained away by Frigga\u2019s dependence on H provided by her captor, but then answer me this. How does Tony NOT know what she\u2019s doing on her day off? Are we really expected to believe he never has her followed, not even once? Here\u2019s another. After killing two thugs at a warehouse, Frigga sits and waits for the police to arrive. When they do, she beats them up and steals their patrol car. Why not take her own nondescript car instead? It\u2019s less likely to be noticed. Also, there\u2019s a greater chance she\u2019ll be caught driving a stolen police vehicle (with the siren blaring, no less). Isn\u2019t it possible the cops will put a BOLO out on it the minute they discover what\u2019s happened? I\u2019d say it\u2019s very likely.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ordinarily, I don\u2019t go for English dubbing. It\u2019s distracting because there\u2019s something off about it tonally speaking. HOWEVER, this rule applies only to serious, more prestigious art films. It does NOT apply to spaghetti westerns, kung fu movies, cheapie Italian genre movies and exploitation flicks from all countries. At heart, Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong> is just as trashy as any American-made exploitation revenge actioner with the added bonus of X-level sex. It has a solid leading lady in Lindberg, an erotica actress known to American men for her appearances in Playboy and Penthouse (Pet of the Month, June 1970). She convincingly plays a young woman who\u2019s been in hell for most of her life and wants out. Frigga is damaged goods, but also foxy, tough, relentless and mad as hell. She wants nothing less than total retribution against everybody that wronged her. Boy, does she ever get it!<\/p>\n

\u00a0However, this leads to my other complaint about Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong>. All of the violent scenes are filmed in slow motion, really slow motion. Why? I suspect it\u2019s supposed to be artful. It is, after all, a European exploitation movie. The truth is it serves no purpose. It’s actually really annoying. On the other hand, I now know where Christopher George got his inspiration for his death scene in Enter the Ninja.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong> is one of the earliest examples of a female protagonist refusing to be a helpless victim and taking action against her (mostly) male tormentors. The idea of making Frigga a mute is interesting; it\u2019s clearly a statement about females not having a voice in a male-dominated society. This idea would be used to even better effect in Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d like to take this opportunity to thank QT for bringing Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong> to my attention. It really is quite an experience. The near-complete absence of a score enhances the bleak tone. It definitely gives credence to what your parents always said about getting into cars with strangers. It doesn\u2019t always work stylistically and Vibenius\u2019 screenplay could have used some polishing. The acting and characterizations aside from Lindberg are about what you\u2019d expect of a movie of this ilk. The heroine is a bad ass hottie, the villains are slimy and nobody other than Madeleine\/Frigga has more than one dimension.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have to admit I like the American theatrical title They Call Her One Eye better than Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong>. It sounds cooler. I know a cool title doesn\u2019t always guarantee a good movie (I Dismember Mama anybody?), but it stays with you nonetheless. By any title, Thriller: A Cruel Picture<\/strong> is a good junky exploitation movie. It would have been better without all the damn slo-mo. Oh well, you know what they say. Forget it Movie Guy, it\u2019s Euro-town.<\/p>\n

WARNING: FOR ADULTS ONLY!!!\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International Pictures (US)\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (strong graphic violence, graphic nudity, explicit hardcore sex, some language, graphic drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bo Arne Vibenius (as \u201cAlex Fridolinski\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bo Arne Vibenius\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ralph Lundsten\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Andrew Bellis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 5, 1974 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Christina Lindberg, Heinz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Thriller-A-Cruel-Picture-PI.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3671,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715\/revisions\/3671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}