Director: Bo Arne Vibenius (as Alex Fridolinski)
Screenplay: Bo Arne Vibenius
Starring: Christina Lindberg, Heinz Hopf, Solveig Andersson, Despina Tomazani
Country: Sweden
Running Time: 106 min
Year: 1973
BBFC Certificate: 18
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (a.k.a. Thriller – En grym film, They Call Her One Eye or Hooker’s Revenge) is a notorious rape-revenge film from 1973 that has long been hard to get hold of in the UK. It received cinematic VHS releases in heavily cut forms but, since then, it’s only been available on imported discs.
Thankfully, after all this time, Screenbound are releasing the film on UHD and Blu-ray in the UK. Sadly, it’s not the completely uncut version (more details on that later on) but it’s about as close as we’re likely to get in this country, without it having an R18 certificate and only being made available in specialist stores.
Thriller tells the story of Madeleine (a.k.a. Frigga, played by Christina Lindberg), a young woman who became mute after being sexually assaulted as a child. As if that wasn’t traumatising enough, as a teenager, she is abducted by a sex trafficker named Tony (Heinz Hopf). He proceeds to load her up with high-grade heroin to get her dependent on the drug, so that she stays with him and works as a prostitute in order to keep receiving her daily doses.
After learning that her loving parents have committed suicide due to a fake letter Tony sent them, which claimed to be from her, Madeleine decides that enough is enough. She trains in karate, shooting and rally driving, so that she is able to enact revenge on Tony and the ‘clients’ she’s forced to sleep with.
The director of Thriller, Bo Arne Vibenius (working under the pseudonym Alex Fridolinski), reportedly called it “a shitty film but with interesting excerpts in it.” He admits he made it purely as a commercial venture, after his debut film, a family-friendly movie called Hur Marie träffade Fredrik, performed badly.
Vibenius supposedly intended the film to get banned, inserting hardcore sex and graphic violence into the film so he could use this as a selling point. Indeed, Thriller got banned in Sweden on its initial release and this fact was used heavily in the publicity.
Unfortunately, despite the film being very successful worldwide, AIP, which bought the rights to the film, never paid Vibenius a penny. He made another attempt at making a controversial money-maker in 1975 with Breaking Point, but then seems to have fallen off the filmmaking map, other than a little assistant work and production managing.
It’s a shame, because, despite the shocking nature of Thriller, it’s not as “shitty” as its director claims. Yes, it is not a pleasant film, by any stretch of the imagination. That title is no joke. This is a relentlessly grim experience, particularly in the first two-thirds.
It’s a little rough around the edges in places too, with some of the minor characters’ performances coming across as quite clunky.
However, Thriller also has a surprisingly artful side that I didn’t expect. Everything is stripped back to the bare essentials, keeping dialogue and narrative as simple, minimal and clear as possible. There aren’t layers of sound design to soften the edges, and the unusual, atmospheric synth score is starkly minimalist too.
This to-the-point nature means that more time is spent on showing events in unsettling detail. We watch Tony forcing Madeleine into working at his brothel as if he’s just getting his usual chores done. Later, we see Madeleine working diligently, training to be able to enact her revenge. She doesn’t just inherit superpowers out of nowhere, she works hard so that she can’t fail.
Even the fights and shootings that occur in the final act are shot in ultra-slow-motion, with a camera shooting at 3,000 frames per second, to draw out the violence in all its bloody detail.
The film can be quite nicely shot in places too, making great use of autumnal colours. Despite being best known for directing this nasty little film, he started out as an assistant and unit director for Ingmar Bergman on Persona and Hour of the Wolf, so he wasn’t just a nobody, trying to make a buck from a grindhouse movie.
Though it’s not the first rape-revenge film (Bergman himself did one in the early 60s), Thriller is undoubtedly influential. After watching Ms .45 recently, it would be hard to argue that Abel Ferrara wasn’t influenced by this, for starters. Not only is the basic concept similar, but you have a mute protagonist and ultra-slow-motion violence in the revenge scenes at the end.
Then you’ve got the visual nods to Thriller from Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill. He’s openly acknowledged that he was inspired by the film.
However, as surprisingly well-made, unusual and influential as Thriller is, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it left me quite cold. Despite all that Madeleine goes through, you never warm to this distant character enough to get much of an emotional reaction to her plight, beyond disgust.
Her ability to be able to go out and work to enact revenge also seems a bit too easy. Yes, we see her putting a lot of effort into her training, but it’s not clear how she’s able to spend so much time out of the brothel, paying various specialists to give her the skills she needs when she’s supposedly still a two-doses-a-day heroin addict.
You could argue that details like this don’t matter, but I think the film needed more of a fight to break free from her ‘cell’ to make Madeleine’s revenge all the more satisfying. You could say that the revenge isn’t supposed to be satisfying, as in a film like Ms .45, where it gets out of control, but I don’t buy that here. Madeleine is specifically targeting her abusers in this case, not just wildly murdering any sleezy guy she comes across. Yes, she does attack some police officers later on, but I think this is linked to an earlier detail, where we learn that the man who raped her as a child was never prosecuted.
That’s just my opinion, of course, but I can’t deny that Thriller remains a shocking film. Also, whilst not an easy watch, it is an interesting piece of filmmaking due to its unusual, minimalist approach. So, it was worth waiting to see, even if it made me want a bath afterwards.
Film: 
Thriller: A Cruel Picture is out now in a limited edition UHD and region-free Blu-Ray set, released by Screenbound.
First of all, let’s address the elephant in the room. There is only one version of the film available in this release, and it is not the fully uncut version. Thankfully, it’s not the hatchet job that is the They Call Her One Eye release, which is missing around 20 minutes of footage, but it’s the 106-minute cut that I believe is only missing a number of hardcore inserts during the sex scenes. Cheekily, the cover art claims the film is 108 minutes (the length of the uncut version), when in fact it is not. Personally, I’m not bothered about missing a few hardcore shots, as losing them doesn’t detract from the story, but those hoping for the full, original version of the film will be disappointed.
I watched the Blu-ray disc in the set, and the film looks good. The film was shot in Super 16mm, so has a heavy grain, which is fairly well handled here. I imagine it’s the same transfer as the Vinegar Syndrome release, as most of the extras are ported from that, but I can’t confirm for certain. The images in this review are from the Screenbound website, but they do appear to be screengrabs (scaled down from 4k), which will give you an idea of the picture quality.
You get a choice of Swedish or English language options, when it comes to audio. I opted for the former and had no issues with the sound. It does, however, seem as though ‘dubtitles’ have been used, which is a shame. By this, I mean the subtitles are taken from the English dub rather than being directly translated from the original Swedish audio track. This is clear in numerous sequences where the subtitles aren’t synced – with the occasional subtitle when there’s no dialogue on the Swedish track at all.
LIMITED EDITION UHD + BLU-RAY FEATURES
– Limited to 2000 Copies
– Double-sided Poster
– Sticker Sheet
– Christina Lindberg: The Paris Interview (A 59-minute interview by Christian Valor)
– “Thriller – A Cruel Documentary” – The making of “Thriller: A Cruel Picture”, starring Christina Lindberg (star), Bo Sunnefeldt (stuntman), Lasse Lundgren (stuntman) and Gunnar Palm (actor) (43 Mins)
– Commentary track with author & critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
– Outtakes
– Christina Lindberg music tracks from her 7” single
– SAAB Commercial – directed by Bo Arne Vibenius
– Original theatrical and teaser trailers
– Original theatrical trailer and TV Spot
– Original theatrical trailer for HOOKER’S REVENGE
– Radio spots
All of the special features have previously appeared on the US Vinegar Syndrome release, though a couple from that set are missing, along with the other two other alternative versions of the film.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas provides a commentary. This is intellectual without sounding dry. She makes clear and intriguing points about the film and the rape revenge genre in general, even if she perhaps overstates her point about not all tape revenge movies being junk and the same.
There’s also a 43-minute making-of documentary included in the set. This features interviews with Christina Lindberg and others. It’s a great watch, with some illuminating anecdotes.
Not listed on the sleeve but also included in the set is an hour-long interview with Lindberg. She talks about her life and career as a whole, inspired by photos that she and her interviewer go through. It’s an enjoyable and eye-opening piece.
There are 5 minutes of silent outtakes included too, which play over soundtrack excerpts. This is more like raw footage, some possibly from alternate takes, but most seemingly from used takes, rather than offering anything totally unseen.
There are also some Christina Lindberg music tracks – 7 mins worth, with some often topless cover art to enjoy whilst listening. She’s not got a particularly good voice, frequently singing a little off-key, but the songs have a certain charm if you’re into pop from that era.
There’s also a Saab commercial by Bo Arne Vibenius. This makes use of super slow-motion cameras, like the film.
So, whilst owners of the Vinegar Syndrome release won’t need to upgrade, and completionists will baulk at the lack of an uncut version, those of us in the UK who have waited a long time for any sort of release of Thriller on UHD or Blu-ray in the UK will be satisfied with Screenbound’s release. The film isn’t one I’m going to want to revisit often, but the transfer and extras are strong, and I’m glad I finally got to see it.
Disc/package: