Mad Heidi

Starting with that first yodel, Mad Heidi is as crazy as it is, well, cheesy. The self-proclaimed Swissploitation action-splatterfest is all about illegal cheese, fascist rule, warrior nuns, and a madcap Casper Van Dien whose mustache-twirling villainy is as high as the Alps. Yet for all its silliness and over-the-top parodying, Mad Heidi should have been a lot crazier.

Mad Heidi is a crowdfunded project helmed by Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein. The indie movie parodies not only general exploitation films but specifically the good-natured Heidi stories of old (such as the sappy Shirley Temple classic). Here, Switzerland is under the fascist control of cheese-loving President Meili (Van Dien). When both Heidi's (Alice Lucy) freedom-loving grandfather and goat cheese-smuggling boyfriend are killed, Heidi transforms herself into a kick-ass fighter and goes after fierce retribution against Meili and his brutal regime. In short, cheese happens.

Mad Heidi is fun and silly. Mad Heidi was not made to promote the artform of cinematic splendor. This is a riotous goof that caters to a specific audience, a level on which Mad Heidi completely succeeds.

Mad Heidi is trash! ... and that's a good thing. The film has a very high quality and thus leaves many other trash films behind. Actors, setting, cinematography - all great! Johannes Hartmann did a great job with the film and created a wonderful (Swiss) ploitation film that is at the forefront of the genre.

If you like Switzerland, you will love all the clichés. Cheese, chocolate or the Swiss army knife are just a few examples.

In terms of acting, Casper Van Dien and Max Rüdlinger stand out in particular. Van Dien plays the slimy "very Swiss leader" with great humor, while Rüdlinger, with his Swiss accent, plays Commander Knorr with exaggerated spite.

The cinematography shows the most beautiful sides of Switzerland, while the action comes along with lots of blood, splatter and killing jokes.

It is hard to criticize a film which starts off boasting about how it was crowd-funded by the common folk, with no interference from the big corporations or studios. Hard. But not impossible. The first red flag is that the uber-high ratings from the early posted member reviews do not match the ratings left by members who saw the film later, gave much lower ratings, but did not bother to leave a review. The explanation? Mad Heidi is loaded to the brim with raw energy and great expectations. But very little of that actually translates into a movie that anyone would care to waste 90 minutes on. The script seems like to have been written by someone trying to piece together the best parts of Max Max, Monty Python, and every Kung Fu film you have ever seen. The result is supposed to be unique and fresh. Instead it basically re-invents 1960's "experimental cinema," and does not do a very good job even at that. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

It goes without saying that you need to like or at least be familiar with the "exploitation" genre to fully enjoy this movie; a soft spot for "trash" movies like Iron Sky (the first one, not the terrible sequel) and similar "trashy" B-movies also helps.

I however disagree with the authors/directors of Mad Heidi that they single-handedly invented the "Swissploitation" genre in 2022 with Mad Heidi.

Older Swiss movies should take the credit for pioneering this movie niche, for example (my list below is by no means exhaustive):

• Sommersprossen (1968, German title)
• L'inconnu de Shandigor (1967, French title)
• Several early movies by the Swiss director Erwin C. Dietrich, mostly released in the 70s and 80s (to be fair to Mad Heidi, many of Erwin's movies were shot abroad, not in Switzerland)

There are also newer examples, like these more extreme Swiss splatter niche movies:

• Projekt Fleisch (1999)
• Nutshot (2019)

Mad Heidi is another good, updated entry to the genre with many nods and references to famous directors like Tarantino or Rodriguez. The two Mad Heidi directors are quite open about this aspect and even list movies that influenced Mad Heidi's story telling and plot, namely:

Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill (Vol. 2), Danger 5, Lady Snowblood, Heidi (the classic 1937 and 1952 versions, obviously, since Mad Heidi is a trash/horror parody on the original story), Coffy, Foxy Brown...

The movie doesn't take itself too seriously and makes fun of Switzerland and Swiss clichés like chocolate, cheese and xenophobia, much like earlier domestic classics such as the comedy "Schweizermacher" (aka "The Swiss Makers" internationally, 1978). The more you know about Swiss cliches, the more you will enjoy the funny details and easter eggs in Mad Heidi.

But rest assured: Even if you are only vaguely familiar with the original Heidi saga/plot and the fact that many Swiss take their cheese seriously you can laugh at most jokes.

The splatter/special effects, the level of detail in many movie props (e.g. The "final boss" Neutral-izer, a word pun on Switzerland's political neutrality axiom) and the performances are quite good; some are even very good - especially considering the tiny budget of just around USD/CHF 3 million (much of the total budget was raised by crowdfunding).

(For a quick comparison: Other genre movies like the trashy Iron Sky II sequel cost six times that amount and are much worse. Starting with a confusing script...but I digress.)

The overarching revenge plot in Mad Heidi is quite simple and/or predictable. Some critics may dismiss the entire Mad Heidi movie as pure "fan service" - this is however very understandable since much of the total budget was raised using crowdfunding methods, as discussed above.

We may even get a sequel one day since the open ending leaves many avenues to explore.

I rate this movie 6/10 cheese wheels. Maybe it's even worth 7+/10 if you really like this genre of movies.

PS: In order to reach a broader international audience (and since many foreign actors like genre specialist Casper Van Dien have leading roles) the movie was shot in English, with only a few sentences or words in Swiss German mixed into the dialogues. Surprising at first, but understandable given the movie's ambitious global distribution target.

This crowdfunded, swiss made exploitation movie, has almost everything one can hope for; splatter, clichés, memes, movie references and great visuals.

The amount of time and love invested in this movie really shines through. You can feel the filmmakers love for film. I was very impressed by the quality of the costumes, the sets, even the cgi. (Remembering it's a small production without any big companies involved and a budget that was crowdfunded) There are so many references to swiss culture beautifully incorporated.

This might be controversial and is probably more wishful thinking on my part but what I didn't like was that the film is in English. Of course it has to be to be view and enjoyed around the world, but as a swiss I believe swiss german could have made it much more hilarious. And probably also improved the acting. ( I got the feeling that because the non native english speakers had to speak english their acting suffered a little)

The acting in general varied. Over all it was not great but it also didn't have to be.

What I greatly disliked were the scene with the naked maid. (Portrayed by a swiss "performance artist"). It didn't add anything to the movie and every scene with her in it was like: Naked maid with big fake boobs enters the room - the men around the table start staring and salivating.

In conclusion: definitely worth a watch to not only support independent film makers but also have a fun evening with "the boys" (or girls) and a few beers.