MAD HEIDI

(director/writer: Joannes Hartman/Sandro Klopfstein; screenwriters: Gregory D. Widmer/Trent Haaga; cinematographer: Eric Lehner; editors: Jann Anderegg/Claudio Cea/Isai Oswald; music: Mario Batkovic; cast: Alice Lucy (Heidi), Max Rudlinger (Kommandant Knorr), Casper Van Dien (President Meili), Kel Matsena (Goat Peter), David Schofield (Alpoli); Runtime: 92; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Valentin Greutert; Swissploitation film; 2022-Switzerland-in English & Swiss German, English subtitles)

“It’s a low budget film, with low-tech special effects and low expectations.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz


The first Swissploitation film is a tasteless, trashy film. The first-time feature film Swiss co-directors, Joannes Hartman and Sandro Klopfstein, along with co-writers Gregory D. Widmer and Trent Haaga, keep it moving along. They expand the classic Swiss Heidi children’s novel (1881) into an action pic/satire (if you can believe!). The well-choreographed fight scenes get over, the comic attempts are silly but fun and the sci-fi /horror parts work despite not really working. It’s a low budget film, with low-tech special effects and low expectations.

The only legal cheese factory owner in the country is the power hungry dictator of Switzerland, President Meili (Casper Van Dien), who has evil global domination ambitions. Meanwhile his evil followers have discovered a type of cheese that turns men into soldier mutants, who can be formed into an unbeatable army.

The young woman, a grown-up Heidi (Alice Lucy), lives with her gentle grandfather Alpoli (David Schofield) in the Swiss Alps. The film moves her into a dystopian Switzerland, under the dictator, Meili, where she and her peaceful community are exploited. Things turn ugly when her grandfather is killed for no reason by the fascist Kommandant Knorr (Max Rudlinger), along with her boyfriend Goat Peter (Kel Matsena), who makes an illegal cheese sold on the black market. The fascists thereby jail Heidi.

When Heidi escapes, after training rigorously for the day she is free, she joins with other patriots and trains to fight back and get revenge on their enemy. The kickass heroine leads the charge and earns the nickname of Mad Heidi.

REVIEWED ON 12/11/2022  GRADE: B-