Picture this.
I was in my local JB Hi-Fi, perusing the movie section searching for some diamonds in the rough. Something bold, dramatic, exciting. There’s a buy two get one free deal, and I’m hunting for that last key selection to get my moneys worth and stick it to the man.
There on the shelf I spot it, a new release, Mad Heidi. I look at the back, selected for seven film festivals, cheese tyrants, action, adventure …
Had I found it? The one? That special movie that for years to come I could toss over to a mate while saying “Get a load of this?”.
I grab my selection of movies, make it home, and slap Mad Heidi straight onto my TV.
The intro rolls, and a Swiss cheese themed pastiche of the paramount logo plays, revealing the makers of this cultural touchstone, the aptly named Swisspolitation Films, accompanied by a short message read to the audience before we leap into the action.
“Mad Heidi was crowdfunded by movie fans from around the globe. Passionate filmmakers have spent years to make it. No studios, no corporations involved. Just love for film.”
As the film ended, and credits rolled, I thanked my lucky stars that the makers of the movie had a love for film. I shudder to think how much worse it could have been had they hated it.
In those preceding 90 minutes of cult action filmmaking, my eyes, ears and soul were bombarded with an affront to both my taste in movies and in dairy.
Our hero Heidi, after experiencing the loss of the love of her life and her only family, embarks herself on a vengeance fueled massacre against her nations corrupt government. Who are they? Well, obviously the fascist cheese ruler of Switzerland and his assortment of cronies. They, in their lust for world domination, seek to control the minds of the populace through medicated dairy. They seek to crush any resistance from the lactose intolerant who are beyond their control and eradicate them from the face of the globe.
The movie does not hold back. We have goats cheese drug deals, mustardy frankfurt foreplay and fountains of blood spilling higher than the Lake Burley Griffin jet.
The movie takes its delectable dystopian concept and proceeds to milk it for absolutely all that its worth.
Unfortunately, that turns out to be not very much.
So, how’s the movie?
Before we bite in to the wurst that Mad Heidi has to offer though, let us start with something at least closer to positive. As you may have already guessed from my summary, there is a lot of emphasis on its violence as spectacle.
And if that’s what you’re after, the movie’s got you covered. Between executions via crossbow RPG, Toblerone hammered through the face and the splitting in twain of assorted cheese fascists, there’s enough blood curdling violence in the move to either satiate your appetite or help you lose it.
The violence though is not given room by the filmmakers to escalate. As a result, much of the final product somehow fails to leave impact. The movies dial starts at 11, and as it progresses seems to resort to being more and more crass for the sake of maintaining a reaction from the audience, lest the rivers of blood begin to wash over them.
The movie’s writing is also tremendously clichéd, and fails to find wit or reprieve even when dealing with its more zany elements of dairy dictatorship.
The editing of the movie also suffers. Too many times to count will there be several cuts to tighter and tighter close ups of characters delivering dialogue all from the one take. One assumes these choices were made to inject energy into what are otherwise dull scenes, however the cutting results only in a head scratching distraction for viewers.
Performances too are a mixed bag. Lead actor Alice Lucy does a serviceable job as the titular star, albeit the material gives them little to really sink their teeth into.
The supporting cast of villains leave much to be desired. Attempts are made by the rogues to mustache twirl and add some much needed ham to the production, however most leave the audience with an aftertaste of Devon.
Heidi’s origins and her contemporaries
Despite the film’s brutal and graphic imagery, the titular character’s origins go back far further than this screenplay. Heidi and much of her supporting cast are lifted from the works of 19th century Swiss author Johanna Spyri. In these original works, Heidi is a 5-year-old girl who grows up with her grandfather in the Swiss alps, and was explicitly a children’s story. The books original title went so far as to bill itself as”a story for children and those who love children.”
Directors Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein in crafting their picture lifted this icon of Swiss literature, and added in a hearty dollop of inspiration from bloody and gory exploitation movies of the past half century to give the production more edge.
Mad Heidi is by no means the first or last in its sub-genre of cheaply produced schlock. The pattern of adaptations of classic children’s characters into gory and violent genre flicks is an increasingly common phenomenon. In recent years we have seen Winnie the Pooh became public domain and be exploited with the successful Blood and Honey line of slasher flicks, along with the more recent Mickey Mouse thriller The Mouse Trap.
The juxtaposition of innocent subject matter with adult (but not necessarily mature) content serves as its own pre-existing punchline and largely makes up the thesis for these movies existence.
Given the thin and shallow pretext to such films, another category they very easily fall into is that of the “so bad it’s good” movie. Such releases have seen a revitalisation in popularity with the rise of internet meme culture, with original movies like Sharknado attracting audiences of jeering hecklers.
Given the paper thin concepts and low budget values such films boast, the so-bad-it’s-good market can be a godsend for their appeal, as their shortcomings can be leaned into by filmmakers as features of the product rather than bugs.
I must admit, in choosing to watch this movie a part of my mind reasoned with itself that surely even if my pick was not a winner in the quality department, at least I may be able to sit back with my popcorn and watch a train-wreck that could at least give me a taste of sweet, sweet schadenfreude.
Even these hopes though, were dashed.
So bad it’s good?
So-bad-they’re-good movies can be a tricky thing. Their existence highlights how toxic the relationship between authors and audiences can be.
Enthusiastic viewers dutifully seek out the tireless works of creators wishing to express their vision, all so that they can get the chance to point and laugh in their face for cocking it up. So-bad-it’s-good enthusiasts go into the movies rooting against the filmmakers, hoping that their craft and means fall short of their visions and egos. Looking for movies whose creators thought they had struck gold, when they had actually struck a sewage pipe.
And that’s where Mad Heidi fails most of all.
It was made as a joke. It’s a movie that wears its deficiencies as a badge of honour.
If you try to watch the movie as “so bad it’s good”, you will be left wanting. The fun of gawking at the movies flaws are stripped away, as for its whole runtime the movie perpetually winks back at you saying “Yeah, I’m just the worst aren’t I!”
Thus is why the movie is the most disappointing freebie I’ve ever received. It is a movie that failed at failing.
On reflection though, is it unfair to expect a good impact from all art we experience? At the start of this piece you may recall me saying that Mad Heidi was the freebie that I got with two other movies that day. What were those two other movies?
Who knows. There impact on my life compared to Mad Heidi was so low that my memory of what they even were is lost to time.
So I guess I should thank Mad Heidi. It achieved what great art is meant to and made me leave the experience different to how I entered. At least it gave me something.
Mainly a headache, but I’ll take what I can get.