Vengeance Edition (Non-Porn)
Thriller: They Call Her One Eye (Vengeance Edition – 1974)
R1 / NTSC DVD
Synapse Video / 2005
Director: Bo Arne Vibenius
Writer: Bo Arne Vibenius
Starring: Christina Lindberg, Heinz Hopf
Review by Vaughn Drake
It opens with a young girl enjoying the autumn weather and playing in the fallen leaves, who meets up with an older man who seems like her grandfather, but the mood quickly changes and he molests her. She screams, escapes and he gets caught and taken away by the police. We fast forwards fifteen years and find out that he served no jail time and has since died. According to the local gossips, the girl he molested, Frigga, hasn’t said a word in all that time, and is still recovering from the incident.
Frigga needs to catch a bus into town for an appointment with her doctor, but misses it! Good thing for Frigga that a nice man named Tony happened to be driving by in a fancy car, takes her into town, and wines and dines her. Before you can say “here come Christina’s boobies” she gets drugged, addicted to heroin, and forced into a life of prostitution. Frigga isn’t happy in her new life, but while she was unconscious, she became an addict and now needs her fix, so she’s forced to comply with Tony’s demands. Frigga eventually gets sick of her role as whore, and slowly trains to get her revenge.
This is a fun movie to watch, but it’s full of glaring plot holes—the first one being, why would she get into a strangers car if she’s so messed in the head? The training she takes part of, is fun to watch and of course seeing the bad guys get what’s coming to them is great. This brings us to the other annoying element in the movie: the slow motion scenes. When she finally gets her revenge, most kills are done in excruciatingly slow motion.
Also of note, this version is considered to be “censored”. The Limited Edition, also available from Synapse Video, features hardcore sex scenes (a body double is used for Christina Lindberg) and a very graphic scalpel to the eyeball that the Vengeance edition only implies. Although this version is a much smoother watch, it wouldn’t hurt to see the other version at least once—if only for the eyeball scene.
Lindberg is a good looking girl, often naked and she carries the movie with aplomb without saying a single word. Thriller is a true classic in the rape / revenge sub genre and has aged very well in the thirty plus years since its initial release. Fans of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and other exploitive flicks like I Spit on Your Grave, should love Thriller.
Although this isn’t the definitive edition of Thriller, it still gives you just enough of what you’ll need to enjoy the film. It’s probably a good idea to see the Limited Edition at least once just to see what’s missing (graphic sex and gore) and all the additional bonus features, but the Vengeance Edition is all you’ll need once you’ve seen the other version. With this version still you get lots of naked Lindberg, you just won’t get hairy nutsacks crowding the screen, and a two second longer eyeball scene.
