Quentin Tarantino called it 'the roughest revenge movie ever made!' It became the first movie ever to be banned in Sweden. It created a stir at Cannes with charges of pornography.
THRILLER - A CRUEL PICTURE has had quite a rugged history, and now with Quentin Tarantino crediting the Swedish actioner as the inspiration behind his successful Kill Bill flicks, it's gotten new life with it's DVD release.
While the prevailing filmmakers of the 70s and 80s -- including Spielberg, Coppola, and Scorsese -- were crediting the cinematic legends they learned about in their college text books for their inspiration, Tarantino studied the VHS tapes in the video store he was a clerk at. Tarantino didn't draw inspiration from the likes of Welles, Wilder or Sternberg, instead the young gawky punk studied the B-cinema flicks, with titles like SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN, and THE BEYOND, to design his own brand of pop culture fueled movies.
THRILLER (AKA They Call Her One Eye) was one of the videos that Tarantino couldn't get out of his mind. The cruel rape/revenge actioner became the inspiration behind the revenge driven story of his KILL BILL movies. Tarantino also used THRILLER starlet, Christina Lindberg's eye patch as the visual inspiration for his Elle Driver character, played to the hilt by Daryl Hannah.
THRILLER tells the sordid tale of an innocent young woman who'd been rendered mute from a traumatic childhood assault. Torn away from home by a dubious stranger, she rebels against her captor only to have one of her eyes gouged out as punishment (in a scene rumored to have been filmed with an actual corpse). Now, strung out on heroin and forced into a life of prostitution, the girl learns of the death of her parents. Fed up with the cards life has dealt, she secretly trains herself in the fine arts of fighting, killing and revenge. Transformed into a one-woman killing machine (and armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a patch over her left eye), she uses her new skills to enact bloody revenge on those who have done her wrong.
The Swedish rape/revenge flick got a lot of notoriety after rumors swelled that an actual corpse had been used in the eye-gouging scene. But the real shock came from the films graphic use of explicit sex to help demonstrate the demoralizing plight of the captured and harassed young woman.
The use of explicit sex has seen somewhat of a resurgence in contemporary cinema, with films like IRREVERSIBLE, BASE MOI, and more recently THE BROWN BUNNY, but just as back in the 70s these scenes are successful in shocking the audience, but whether the sex has any artistic merit or is just gratuitous is up to the viewer.
Due to all the controversy, THRILLER has not been seen in its entirety since the original run, having been released more widely in the heavily truncated versions, baring the exploitive monikers THEY CALL HER ONE EYE and HOOKER'S REVENGE.
Now Synapse Films has painstakingly restored THRILLER – A CRUEL PICTURE from original vault materials to bring fans the totally uncensored version of the ultimate revenge-exploitation movie. THRILLER is presented by Synapse with all the violence, sex and action intact. Over 20 minutes of previously censored footage has been restored.
The DVD release of THRILLER is not without continued controversy. It's director Bo Arne Vibenius has tried to block the Synapse version of his 1974 film. With all the attention THRILLER garnered from Tarantino's praises, Vibenius decided to get involved. But Synapse claims to have the film rights, and has been working on the resoration for over two years now -- well before the attention the film got after KILL BILL's release.
There has been no resolution to this dispute as of yet.
