Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973)

AKA: Thriller – en grym film; They Call Her One Eye
Directed by: Bo Arne Vibenius
Starring: Christina Lindberg (Madeleine), Heinz Hopf (Tony)
Country: Sweden, Scandinavian Cinema
Language: Swedish (English Subs)
Runtime: 01:46:41
Genres: Prostitution, Revenge, Old-Young Relationships, Captivity-Kidnapping, Drugs, Lesbian

Plot – Spoilers:
A mute woman Madeleine lives on a Swedish dairy farm with her silently caring, old parents. She wasn’t born mute. Rather, the silence in the family was enforced, when as a little girl she was raped by an old man she trusted. A man she trusted enough to playfully curtsy to, before going on a walk with him.

And now years later, she wears the same naivete along with a similar yellowish-orange dress when she agrees to a stranger’s offer for an evening out in town. You can’t really blame her though – the guy is a charming alternative to the cows she regularly spends her time with. This charming guy turns out to be a pimp with a relatively sophisticated clientele. The pimping principle is straightforward – Madeleine is forcibly hooked on to heroin and given the sole option of working with junk to earn her junk.

Christina Lindberg as Madeleine is child-like, not just in her appearance, but especially during her combat training. And this makes her quest for revenge even more entertainingly sinister. As many would notice or know, Thriller: A Cruel Picture served as an important source of inspiration for Tarantino’s Kill Bill. And not just for Elle Driver. Some of the slo-mo death scenes here are comical, but there is enough style in the revenge sequence to offset all of that and make this an exploitation classic banned in Sweden at the time.