Thriller: A Cruel Picture - Classic Cult Film for Movie Enthusiasts | Perfect for Halloween, Film Studies & 70s Cinema Collections

One of a kind sexploitation flick from Europe (Sweden to be exact). Previously, Sweden was known to me through Bergman's filmography, which is far from what Bo Arne Vibenius or Alex Fridolinski...directed in 1973. The movie was so shocking at the time that it was banned in liberal Sweden for a good amount of years. The director had to use multiple aliases in order to avoid any lawsuits or law problems. The movie contains explicit scenes of actual sex of a couple who of course sold their services for money. The scenes are incorporated into the rape scenes. The female star of the film Christina Lindberg who was 23 year sold at the time can be seen on numerous occasions fully naked (nice set of breasts she has). The director of the movie supposedly took out a life-policy on Lindberg just in case if she was accidently killed...the reason for it: real ammunition was used during the shoot-outs. How crazy is that. Vibenius wanted to make a very commercial and successful movie (rumor has it he was in desperate need of money, for his previous two movies failed and he did not cash-out on them as he planned). Rumor also has it, that a scene where Lindberg's character gets her eye cut-out a real body from a morgue was used in order to make it look authentic. The movie contains great amount of slow-motion scenes, especially during shoot-outs, which at the time was a novelty. The film as the title suggests is a "cruel picture" in every sense of that phrase. The picture and filmography looks cruelly done, the characters are cruel, the music is cruel, and the story line is cruel. It is vengeance movie with an unusual amount of hate. Q. Tarantino liked the movie so much as a young man, that his Kill-Bill franchise is loosely based on this film.The movie starts out pretty slow...but once you get past the first 20 minutes the movie speeds up. I personally, think that the ending could have been done better. I don't really understand the meaning behind the horse and the bad guy being buried up to his head. A really weird death. Actually, the movie scenography and poetic ending reminded me of Deadlock (1970) by Roland Klick . Thriller: A Cruel Picture has influenced such movies like: I Spit on Your Grave (1978), Ms. 45 (1981), and a ton of lesser known films of the rape-revenge genre or sexploitation films.