Mad Heidi

Mad Heidi is a simple revenge story set in a world obsessed with dairy products where the lactose intolerant are shunned, publicly humiliated and even taken away to re-education camps and tortured with cheese. This daft film romps away in its own bewildering world of 'Swissploitation' for an undemanding 90mins and is well produced (particularly considering the means of funding) and features good cinematography and fight choreography with strong performances from Alice Lucy and Rebecca Dyson Smith, as the cruel Lutz. Bizarre, absurd and the most original thing that's been along in a while. 'Rest in cheese, b*tch!'

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.

"I work for the industry" is a general term in LA if someone works for the movie industry (been there, done that). This movie originates from no industry. It is handcraftet with tons of love and effort and it reflects throughout the whole movie. I was very surprised. The crew is learning... but did their homework well with great professionalism and it turned out to be great fun to watch the outcome. If you are open for low budget independant movies with a mid budget feel... go see the movie. Will watch it again with friends and a couple of beers. And no, I'm not part of the crew and I'm not a crowdfunder. In general I don't even like the genre. But i've had to write this to add another POV after reading some of the negative comments.

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))

The story behind "Mad Heidi" is almost as interesting - if not MORE interesting - than the film itself. The project started more than 3 years ago as the crazy dream of a bunch of Swiss horror/cult film-buffs. The mission: make the first-ever Swiss exploitation movie, preferably as insane and over-the-top as humanly possible. The challenge: they didn't have any money, only a lot of devoted enthusiasm and energy.

What followed is probably one of the most impressive and respectable crowd-funding campaigns in history. Via Internet and various social media channels, the "Mad Heidi" hype slowly but surely increased. Funds were raised via merchandising (you could even buy a cuckoo-clock) and the pre-order DVD sales of a movie that didn't exist yet! The campaign was incredibly successful, and the film was made with more than enough budget for excellent special effects, and even the involvement of a relatively well-known B-actor; - Casper Van Dien.

But then came Covid-19 ... Just like everything else in the world, the release of "Mad Heidi" was put on hold, and the patience of the cast, crew and thousands of co-funders got tested immensely. Now, and finally, the movie had its world-premiere at the Brussels' International Fantastic Film Festival. It was a real party.

Inevitably, the festive ambiance before, during and after the screening of "Mad Heidi" heavily influenced my experience and rating. I'm sorry for that, but it's simply impossible to get euphoric when you are surrounded by hundreds of people yodeling in a theater, wearing fake Swiss Nazi-uniforms, and drinking beer.

Most importantly, though, "Mad Heidi" is exactly what it promised to be ever since the beginning of production; - namely a massively entertaining and absurdly eccentric exploitation movie with copious amounts of splatter, twisted humor, demented characters, self-parody, deliberately dumb quotes and catch-phrases, and non-stop vitality. The tone, style and content of the film isn't new or innovative. The plot is comparable to crowd-pleasing flicks like "Inglourious Bastards" or "Iron Sky", and the script pays tribute to approximately three dozen of cinematic treasures varying from "The Sound of Music" to "Lady Snowblood".

The story is of lesser importance, but it neatly follows the structure of a textbook revenge-thriller. If I tell you Casper Van Dien stars as the tyrannical and megalomaniacal President of Switzerland, and simultaneously CEO of the only authorized company to produce and export cheese, you already know enough. He wants to obtain world-domination via genetically altered cheese, but a heroic girl from the Alps is determined to get revenge for the murder of her boyfriend and the downfall of her beloved Motherland.

Of all the great fun and splendid gimmicks, what I most appreciated is how the makers wonderfully inserted every possible Swiss cliche and national symbol into their film. There's the Matterhorn and cheese bowls in the film-logo already, but everything else you could possibly associate with Switzerland features as well: idyllic mountain paths, Alp horns, cuckoo clocks, cheese fondue, watches, pocket knives, Toblerone chocolate, ... There's so much lunacy and mayhem happening that Heidi's character and her quest for revenge is even pushed to the background sometimes, which is a minor default.