Behold, the Hilariously Gory Trailer for “Swissploitation” Flick Mad Heidi

The market for “intentionally campy action parody” is a fairly robust one, and a lot of these films come out every year without making much of a splash or a name for themselves. At its core, this is likely due to a simple lack of appreciable talent and budget, which often renders these films as more amateur than one would like to see in order to really land the joke. But then something like the following trailer for Mad Heidi comes along, and you get to see what cinematic silliness looks like when it’s really executed well.

Mad Heidi bills itself as the first-ever “Swissploitation” film, and is a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of the iconic children’s novel first published in 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri. The book documents a young Swiss girl’s adolescence in the pastoral beauty of the Swiss countryside, as she grows and learns about the world around her. The film, on the other hand, has Heidi as a sexy young freedom fighter, battling “cheese fascists.” Oh, and did we mention that the evil President of Switzerland is played by faded Starship Troopers star Casper Van Dien? The full synopsis is as follows:

Blaxploitation, Mexploitation, Sexploitation, Nunsploitation, Naziploitation. Now it’s about time for the first Swissploitation film! In a dystopian Switzerland that has fallen under the fascist rule of a cheese magnate, Heidi lives as a simple young woman in the mountains. Soon, however, her longing for personal freedom will spark a revolution. The naive mountain girl turns into a fierce fighter who has to put an end to the cheese fascists.

Mad Heidi notably raised the majority of its budget via crowd investment, with a $500 minimum that ultimately raised more than $2 million in this method. That kind of budget helps to explain why the over-the-top violence in the trailer below looks as hilariously visceral as it does. It’s been a while since we’ve seen blood shed in quite such a gleeful manner—this Heidi is clearly not much like the one once portrayed by Shirley Temple in 1937. The overall tone, in fact, feels very much like one of the Grindhouse trailers from Robert Rodriguez, with a sense of humor that echoes the likes of Kung Fury.

Mad Heidi will be having a limited theatrical release starting Nov. 24, 2022, before a worldwide digital release on Dec. 8 of this year. In the meantime, enjoy the absolutely bonkers trailer below.