PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Grindhouse is a particularly interesting sub-set of the horror and exploitation genres. It has to have this strangely gleeful low-budget sleaze about it, while making for an eye-catching film viewing. Many films, like Grindhouse, try to nail the exploitation vibe, but there are more imitators than films that reach it. Mad Heidi is a success. It leaves no exploitation untouched. Sexploitation, Blaxploitation, Women’s Prison segments, Nunsploitation? It’s got it all.
Mad Heidi is a tasteless buffet for fans of the genre.
Mad Heidi Synopsis
This wicked odyssey of blood and cheese puts a new spin on the classic tale of “Heidi,” finding our heroine (Alice Lucy) all grown-up and living an idyllic life in the Swiss Alps with her beloved grandfather (David Schofield) far above an increasingly-dystopian landscape presided over by Our Very Swiss Leader (Casper Van Dien) – a ruthless dictator bent on world domination through dairy. But when her goat-herding lover (Kel Matsena) is brutally murdered by government thugs for distributing illegal cheese, Heidi embarks on a wild quest for vengeance that will bring her toe-to-toe against fierce female prison inmates, cheese-fueled Swiss super-soldiers, ninja nuns, and more, as she fights to take down the tyrannical regime and restore freedom to Switzerland.
Now, some may look at terms like “grindhouse” and “exploitation” films as strictly a dirty word. They’re problematic, no doubt, but as Quentin Tarantino said in an interview discussing Kill Bill, we enjoy them because “it’s so much fun, Jan!“. Are all these things bad? Yes, but when taken to the nth degree, the dark in our world almost becomes farcical. And Mad Heidi excels at that. Every element, every character goes beyond.
Heidi (Alice Lucy) is no longer a sweet and naive Swiss girl. She’s a sexually active woman warrior determined to get revenge and uproot the fascist systems that President Mieli (Casper Van Dien) has forced upon her homeland. Mieli himself is a parody of fascist leaders throughout history. Van Dien, an actor normally known for being chisel jawed heroes is indulging himself wholeheartedly in his performance as the egocentric cheesemonger and dictator. Max Rudlinger as Kommandant Knorr is also memorable as the right hand of Mieli. He is so subject to the fascist ideology he is literally a submissive to it, expressed by a bizarre scene with him and Fraulein Rottweiller (Katja Kolm). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film with a Schnitzel dildo before…
Another way the film nails the grindhouse approach is its visual and technical approach. There’s a blend of good and good-bad (intentionally) effects work. The makeup effects for the gore and the mind controlled cheese zombies (no, not kidding with that phrase) are impressive and batshit over the top, much like Evil Dead 2, using that excess we mentioned earlier to turn what should be nasty into dirty fun. Meanwhile, settings like the gladiatorial arena are just enough to fill us into the setting it should be, but also clearly a sign of “we work with what we have”. What could be more grindhouse-core than that? Even Mieli’s propaganda pieces that are interspersed make a sly wink to retro VHS era PSAs and Van Dien’s own famous fascism mocking role as Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers.
Final Thoughts:
To be honest, most of you will have probably made up your minds about this within the time you’ve read the synopsis or seen the trailer. If you have any tolerance or interest in Grindhouse or Exploitation films, however, Mad Heidi is a demented letter of love to both genres.
Mad Heidi is available on Blu-ray and will play in theaters on June 21, 2023, courtesy of Fathom Events.
