Boarne Vibernius’ Thriller (En Grym Film, 1974) – aka They Call Her One Eye – is one of those grubby, semi-legendary videotapes that get passed around El Topo-style between exploitation flick enthusiasts. Indeed, the current asking price on the ’net is E1,200 – I kid you not. And with good reason. It was even banned in its native Sweden.
How exactly does one draw the ire of Sweden’s notoriously lax censors, you might well enquire? Well, this relentlessly exploitative but oddly poignant ‘rape and revenge’ fantasy easily tests the most rigorously liberal boundaries.
The film begins with a horrific sequence wherein the young protagonist Madeline – essayed by notorious Swedish grindhouse movie-star Christina Lindberg – is raped by an elderly man. Ten years later, Madeline has been rendered mute by the experience, and while wandering backroads she encounters businessman Tony, who – wouldn’t you know it – takes her out and uses the opportunity to drug her.
Days later, now hooked on heroin and forced into prostitution, Madeline attempts to escape. Tony gouges out her eye to discipline her. Needless to say, she does what any drug-addled movie prostitute in her position would; she starts plotting a bloodcurdling revenge. And that’s when things get truly hardcore. Wronged women don’t come any rawer; somehow, I can’t imagine fellow-national Sven Goran-Eriksson curling up with a copy on his quiet nights in with Nancy (or Ulrika, or Sir Alex, or whoever).
However, countless filmmakers have paid homage to Christina Lindberg’s most enduring performance, including Lars von Trier and Abel Ferrara. Tarantino has often talked of the movie’s impact, and has pointedly referenced Thriller with Daryl Hannah’s Kill Bill eye patch – not to mention during the über-catfight between Hannah’s Elle Driver and Uma’s vengeful Bride.
Tarantino claims the eye patch is also a tribute to Z-movie-maestro Ted V. Mikels’ The Doll Squad, the inspiration for Charlies’ Angels (cheers) and precursor of the director’s later drive-in highlights, The Corpse Grinders and Blood-Orgy of The She-Devils. Scoff all you want: Mikels may make Roger Corman look like Cecil B. De Mille, but he lives in a castle with his ten girlfriends. Hollywood excess on a shoestring or what?