The most brutal exploitation movie ever made, according to Quentin Tarantino: “That is definitely the roughest”
Being a critical and commercial darling while being inspired by some of the gnarliest and most gruesome movies ever made is just one of the many juxtapositions that make Quentin Tarantino the singular auteur he is.
The two-part Kill Bill and Death Proof are his only features that haven’t been nominated for at least one Academy Award, and every one of his films from Inglorious Basterds onward has claimed at least one Oscar. Similarly, Death Proof is his only flick that hasn’t been shortlisted for a Golden Globe, so he’s spent his career hitting that sweet spot between exploiting exploitation cinema and winning widespread acclaim.
Tarantino draws his inspirations from across the filmic spectrum, channelling everything from Giallo and Jackass to Jean-Luc Godard and John Woo. His love of B-tier movies featuring blood, guts, and gratuitous nudity was instilled when he was too young to watch them, but it wasn’t until Kill Bill that he could finally go for broke and incorporate his love of all things excessive to the fullest.
Whether it was classic martial arts, more modern titles like Battle Royale, or the blood-spurting kung-fu features that left realism at the door from the first frame, Uma Thurman’s roaring rampage of revenge winked, nodded, and homaged a cacophony of credits the average cinemagoer had never even heard of.
When discussing Kill Bill‘s most prominent influences with the Japanese magazine Eiga Hi-Ho in 2003, Tarantino made special mention of a grisly, depraved, and highly controversial Swedish movie that he admitted was the most brutal exploitation film he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Of all the revenge movies I’ve ever seen, that is definitely the roughest,” he said of writer and director Alex Fridolinski’s controversy magnet that was variously branded as They Call Her One Eye, Hooker’s Revenge, The Swedish Vice-Girl, or Thriller: A Cruel Picture, depending on when and where it was released. “There’s never been anything as tough.”
Christina Lindberg’s Madeline influenced Daryl Hannah’s Elle Driver, but at least Tarantino didn’t go all-in on paying tribute to the 1973 cult film. For one thing, it was banned outright in its native Sweden and wasn’t given the go-ahead to be released in either its home country or the United States until 25 minutes of footage had been removed to make it past the censorship board.
The production incorporated scenes of genuine corpses and unsimulated sex, while a life insurance policy was taken out on Lindberg because real ammunition was used during the sequences featuring real guns, and she even injected herself with a saline solution on-camera to mimic heroin use.
Understandably, when Tarantino handed a copy over to Thurman as required viewing before shooting, she wasn’t thrilled. “She said, ‘Quentin! You had me watch a porno!'” he recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, but a good porno!’ She’d never had a director give her a porno movie as homework.”
If someone with a knowledge of exploitation cinema as extensive as Tarantino is adamant that he’s never seen anything rougher or tougher than They Call Her One Eye, then it definitely isn’t for the faint of heart.
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