In a Switzerland that never was, President Meili (Casper Van Dien) is ruling the country with an iron fist, has monopolized cheese production, has declared lactose intolerance illegal, and wants to create cheese that turns people into dumb supersoldiers. His chief scientist Dr. Schwitzgebel (Pascal Ulli) has so far only managed to turn cheeseaters into hideous zombies, but that's good enough for Meili who has set out to conquer the world. None of this matters much to mountain girl Heidi (Alice Lucy), who lives a carefree life in the mountains with her grandfather Alpöhi (David Schofield) and is madly in love with Goat Peter (Kel Matsena). But Goat Peter deals with illegal cheese on the side, and is ultimately shot dead for that. When Heidi protests this, she's chased by Kommandant Knorr (Max Rüdlinger) and his soldiers, whom Alpöhi tries to stop with his trusted shotgun, but is only blown up for this (he survives though to return in the finale). Heidi is thrown into Fräulein Rottweiler's (Katja Kolm) prison, and Meili's ecstactic when he hears about this, because you know, her (long deceased) parents were resistance fighters, and thus he decides to have her fight in the arena for the big celebrations of the national holiday. Heidi however escapes from prison, is trained in martial arts by the spirit of Switzerland Helvetia (Andrea Fischer-Schuthess, voiced by Fabienne Hadorn), and then wages a one-woman war against Meili's soldiers - until Meili sends the "Neutralizer" (Josua Meyer) after her, who delivers her to the arena just in time for national holiday. But Heidi isn't the innocent girl she once was anymore.

Mad Heidi is above all else great fun - it's a somewhat irreverent parody of all things Swiss and all things exploitation cinema. So it basically takes apart the Heidi-myth and puts it back together using elements of blaxploitation, martial arts and revenge cinema, but also women in prison movies (like those made by Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich), to only quote some of the influences, and some very explicit but completely over-the-top gore scenes are thrown in for good measure, too, while Casper Van Dien's performance as dictator is the perfect parody of pretty much every B movie villain. The whole thing is of course anything but subtle, but then again even the film's title suggests as much, but it's also an endless field of Easter eggs for any exploitation cinema afficionado, while it's well enough structured, produced and directed to hold its own beyond all the parody elements to provide good somewhat mindless but never moronic entertainment.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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