Thriller: A Cruel Picture — Thriller: A Cruel Picture( Blu Ray & DVD)
From the early 1970’s Thriller: A Cruel Picture is a Swedish slice of exploitation pie, which blends uneasy sleaze, sudden-at-times quite jarring moments of hardcore action, with drug-taking and brutal violence. Here from the folks at Synapse Films is a double-disc release of this notorious euro exploitation film, taking in two versions of the film, and a few extras.
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (aka Thriller - en grym film, They Call Her One Eye, Hooker's Revenge, The Swedish Vice-Girl) appeared in the year 1973. It was directed and written by Solna, Stockholms län, Sweden born Bo Arne Vibenius- who is probably known most for being the assistant director on Ingmar Bergman's 1966 film Persona. Though he did helm two other films- 1969 family fantasy Hur Marie träffade Fredrik, and 1975 horror-adult film Breaking Point- which apparently features an office worker and train enthusiast, who leads a double life as a schizophrenic and misogynist sex killer.
The film focuses on Madeleine (Christina Lindberg)- who when we first meet her is a little girl. We see her playing in the yellow leafs of fall, a rather creepy older man approaches- woozy electronic score kicks in, and it’s implied he’s just abused her. We fast forward a few years, as Madeleine becomes a late teen in her older years' parents' farmhouse. One morning she rushing to get the bus into town, just missing it- this is when up pulls the carefully cropped beard and flashily suited Tony (Heinz Hopf) in his fast car. He offers her a lift and starts boasting about his car- this is just a ruse to her back to his place, and fairly soon he’s got her hooked on Heroin, working for him as a hooker. We get a selection of woozy and unpleasant sexual encounters; these feature a backdrop of sinister to fairly noise bound electro scoring- with jarring shots of hardcore penetration & leering female self-pleasure. In one such encounter Madeleine scratches a client’s face, this causes Tony to launch an attack on one of her eyes- with a fleetingly nasty orb piecing taking place, and from here on Madeleine starts wearing an eye patch.
As it unfolds Madeleine situation goes from bad to worse, though in her spare time she is training, toughing up, and purchasing weaponry. Readying herself for revenge on the clients who used and abused her, as well as of course Tony- who gets particularly prolonged vengeance. The last quarter or so of the film focuses on this side of things, and we get some very brutal & spluttery gunplay, body drag and rope focused death. The film runs in its longer/ uncut version at one hour and forty-eight-minute mark, which feels a little too long for its own good- but there’s no doubt it’s a largely impactful and shocking film, which switches between sleazed wooziness, sudden in your face hardcore, and brutal ‘n’ bloody revenge.
Moving onto this two-disc release of the film- it features a Blu Ray, with the full uncut version of the film & extras. And the DVD, features the censored of hardcore action version, which runs twenty minutes shorter. On the extra side we have around a minute of cut scenes reel, and a different version of the harbour scene- this runs 5.49. We also get a selection of trailers, stills gallery, and the film in photos- though sadly there’s no commentary track.
In conclusion Thriller- A Cruel Picture certainly is a highly sleazed, at points brutal 70’s revenge flick, which will appeal to fans of rough ‘n’ grim grindhouse fare. And it’s nice to see it in its full cut form, though do tread carefully if you are not accustomed to hardcore sex- as it’s presented in a fairly jarring/ shocking manner in the film.