Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Witchfinder General 666 Piero Schivazappa's "Femina Ridens" (aka. "The Frightened Woman"/"The Laughing Woman") of 1969 is a picturesque and rather bizarre Italian Sexploitation effort that combines sadomasochistic sleaze with a psychedelic art-house atmosphere. Both in terms of style and theme, the film strongly reminded me of another artsy European Exploitation highlight from the same year, Jess Franco's "Venus in Furs" (aka. "Paroxismus"). Although quite tame in explicitness, especially compared to the vast load of European Sleaze films from the early 70s, "Femina Ridens" is delightfully perverted and deranged, and a visually overwhelming piece of psychedelic atmosphere.The wonderful Dagmar Lassander plays Maria, a beautiful journalist with feminist views. One day, she gets kidnapped by the demented Dr. Sayer (Philippe Leroy), a rich and powerful man, who has a sort of paranoid misogyny which leads him to believe that the female species wants to exterminate the male, and who therefore delights in the degradation and fear of women. Sayer holds Maria hostage in his personal castle of demented tortures and humiliations, where he intends to make her his slave; while submitting her to all sorts of degradations, he also shows her pictures of women who had shared her fate, and whom he says he murdered during intercourse, at the point of orgasm. I spite of his cruelty and sadism, Maria grows a strange, Stockholm-Synrome-like fascination for her kidnapper... or does she? The film is highly surreal, sometimes like a fever-dream. Sayer's mansion alone holds a vast variety of bizarre items, and the entire film oozes a surreal atmosphere. Even though feminism may not be a usual trait of European cult-cinema, it was pretty obvious to me that Maria was going to turn the tables towards the end. The style is very peculiar, but supremely elegant, with a great cinematography, fantastic set-pieces and a wonderful musical score by Stelvio Cipriani that sometimes mixes the art-house atmosphere with archaic, Spaghetti-Western-like tunes. Dagmar Lassander is beautiful and fantastic as always, and Philippe Leroy seems to be predestined for the role of the narcissistic, misogynistic and perverted psychopath. Overall, "Femina Ridens" is definitely an unusual and innovative experience that is highly recommendable to fans of European cult-cinema. Definitely not for everyone, but not to be missed by fans of Italian Cult. My rating: 7.5/10

MovieGuy01 I have watched The Frightened Woman, and i have found it to be a very strange and shocking film that, features a lot of sexual threat humiliation and violence. It is about a girl called Maria(Dagmar Lassander) who is the living sex toy of a doctor called Dr. Sayer(Phillippe Leroy). he gets delight and humiliation from killing women when they are are at their most excitable mood. By using bizarre and dangerous sex games against them. Dr. Sayers degradation pushes Maria much to far for her to handle. So she aims to put a spell on him. The film features a lot of 60's type pop art design which will please viewers.

christopher-underwood It could not have come from a different country nor from a different time. This movie simply oozes psychedelia influenced late 60s Italian cinema. So, pseudo serious and sexually free. Sumptuous settings and dreamy music make this a visual and aural delight. Plus we get the lovely Dagmar Lassander, surely at her very best looking. The kinky goings on make for a wild ride and if the romps amidst the Mimosa towards the end seem overlong it is but another rather charming trait of the time. You were probably expected to split those few minutes between the screen and your girlfriend and it does of course herald a twist in the proceedings. It might have been better if Philippe Leroy didn't look quite so odd with his fraying red hair and twisted facial expression. He does well though and has many silent moments where Dagmar is cavorting and he has to show a mixture of love and hate. Not an ordinary narrative film by any means but for those who like that something different, this is certainly that.

The_Void The Frightened Woman is a curious piece of Eurocult, much along the same lines as the films that Jess Franco was churning out around the same time. The film very much captures the feel of late sixties to early seventies European cinema and the atmosphere is definitely the film's best asset. It's lucky that the film will to appeal to fans of this sort of film too, as the idea behind the central plot line is pretty damn ridiculous! I'm not sure if there was some sort of paranoid science related thing happening in Italy in the late sixties, but films like this and the bizarre Giallo Death Laid an Egg suggest to me that something was going on... Anyway, our lead character, Dr. Sayer, has somehow got it into his head that women are taking steps to eliminate the need for men, and so he kidnaps a young lady named Maria. It turns out that he actually does this sort of thing all the time, and has got into the habit of killing his partner every time he has sex. However, things take a turn for the unexpected when Maria convinces him to change his ways.Naturally, the entire film is really rather pointless; and while The Frightened Woman isn't exactly a thrill ride, there's still some interest. The speeches from the lead man are interesting in a completely nonsensical sort of way. The acting is typically trashy, although the leads; Philippe Leroy and Dagmar Lassander give decent leading performances considering the type of film. The majority of the film centres around the forced relationship between the two central characters, and this is somewhat the film's downfall. The problem is that what they're doing isn't always all that interesting; and the relaxed flow of the film means that it can become a bit dreary at times. The locations are good, however, and the bachelor pad in which most of the action takes place is a good representative of the period in which the film was made. As a 'battle of the sexes', it has to be said that The Frightened Woman veers more towards femininity, which is odd considering the way that women are usually treated in Eurocult cinema. Overall, I wouldn't recommend anyone going out of their way to find this film; but if you're a fan of trashy Jess Franco stuff, you might just like this too.