Thriller: A Cruel Picture
Thriller: A Cruel Picture is a 1973 film from Sweden, directed by Bo Arne Vibenius, running 107 minutes. reelscum files it under vigilante and rape-revenge.
- Year
- 1973 · 1970s films
- Country
- Sweden
- Runtime
- 107 min
- Director
- Bo Arne Vibenius
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (29/100)
- Also known as
- Thriller: A Cruel Picture · They Call Her One Eye · Hooker's Revenge · Thriller · Thriller: A Cruel Picture (Uncut) · A Cruel Picture
- Banned in
- Sweden
Defined in the glossary: Vigilante, Rape-revenge
Banned in its native Sweden on completion, and released years later only in a heavily shortened cut.
The eyepatch Tarantino copied. Contains real hardcore inserts and a real animal death.
The Swedish film that gave Tarantino the eyepatch for Kill Bill, and it is far grimmer than that homage suggests. A mute woman, drugged and forced into prostitution, trains herself in weapons and driving and takes a cold, methodical revenge, shot partly in dreamlike slow motion. Christina Lindberg says almost nothing and communicates everything through her stare.
It contains genuine hardcore inserts and a real animal death, and it is one of the bleakest revenge films ever made, closer to art-horror than to a crowd-pleaser. The imagery is iconic; the film is punishing.
Influential, striking, and a genuine ordeal.
Trailer
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Where to watch
No legal stream, rental or purchase that we could find in the usual regions. For films this obscure that is common, and availability changes, so it is worth checking again later.
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Filed alongside
Ms. 45
Ferrara's best. Zoë Lund is extraordinary and the ending is a genuine image.
Coffy
Pam Grier's arrival. Jack Hill knows exactly what he has.
Rolling Thunder
Paul Schrader script, and the last twenty minutes are perfect.
The Exterminator
A flamethrower and a meat grinder. Death Wish with the restraint removed.
Walking Tall
One sheriff, one hickory club, and the blueprint for every Southern vigilante picture after it.
Class of 1984
Death Wish enrols at high school and the faculty loses.
Across 110th Street
Grim, well acted, and the best film in the cycle by some distance.
Maniac Cop
A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.
Death Wish 3
Abandons realism entirely. Bronson defends a housing block with a machine gun.
Vigilante
Lustig doing it straight. Robert Forster deserves better and knows it.
I Saw the Devil
Revenge as a chew toy. Nobody in Korean cinema has been crueller for longer.
I Spit on Your Grave
The most argued-about film on this site. Read the glossary entry before deciding.