Mad Heidi Swissploitation Splatter Comedy Will get Particular On-line Launch – The Hollywood Reporter

Wild and elaborate deaths are half and parcel of style films, a blood-soaked world the place filmmakers are sometimes in competitors to lift the splatter bar as excessive as doable. Talking of bars, one movie has certainly deserves some type of prize for this yr’s most inventive — and culturally applicable — offing, a demise in a which a complete triangular tube of Toblerone is hammered into a person’s mouth and out the opposite facet. In one other scene, a prisoner is waterboarded with steaming scorching fondue (OK, the fondue is tipped over his eyes whereas his mouth is full of croutons).

Introducing Mad Heidi, an insane action-adventure horror-comedy described because the “world’s first Swissploitation film,” and surely probably the most ridiculous tackle the beloved pig-tailed, Alps-living orphan woman Johanna Spyri wrote about 140 years in the past.

From first-time administrators Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein, Mad Heidi is ready in a dystopian fairytale Switzerland underneath the fascist rule of a cheese business tycoon (Starship Troopers’ Casper Van Dien) whose reign of terror entails looking down the lactose illiberal. After her lover is brutally murdered for smuggling goat cheese into the nation, younger Heidi (Alice Lucy) comes down from the mountains and — following a stint within the slammer with a few hardened feminine bodybuilders — finds her true calling as an ax-wielding, Bavarian beer maid-clad martial arts badass who takes on the despot and his military. There’s a full platter of violence, gore, pointless nudity, cheese and a complete financial institution vault’s value of Swiss stereotypes. 

The tongue-in-cheek and OTT plot, plus the aesthetics, put Mad Heidi firmly alongside 2012’s Nazis-on-the-moon sci-comedy Iron Sky (maybe unsurprisingly, Iron Sky writer-director Timo Vuorensola exec produced Mad Heidi), and cult 2015 quick Kung Fury. However there’s one other main similarity, in that each one three got here to life by way of crowdfunding campaigns. 

As producer Valentin Greutert explains, the staff behind the movie — which was initially to be referred to as Heidiland — realized a mission like Mad Heidi wouldn’t entice the same old financing. “We thought, ‘We’re not going to get market cash, we’re actually not going to get any movie fund to assist the movie,’ so I assumed, ‘Let’s attempt to crowdfund it.’”

They shot a fast teaser in 2017 (one that includes the Toblerone skewering and fondue torture), which — understandably — obtained a number of traction, elevating round $300,000. However with a finances of round $3.3 million, there was a nonetheless main hole to fill. Greutert turned up the dial from small-fry funding in alternate for merchandise, to crowd investing in alternate for precise possession of the movie, teaming with an organization in London referred to as FilmChain that mechanically sends a reimbursement to the beneficiary. A $500 per share minimal was set, which then translated to a proportion of the income (and crucially, not revenue).

“From the primary cent the movie generates, individuals have a share within the income,” Greutert says. 

Mad Heidi is ready for theatrical launch in various main territories Nov. 24, and at AFM its North American distributor Raven Banner will assist promote the film to different potential patrons (Greutert says they don’t have an precise gross sales firm, all a part of chopping out the center man). In a key twist, following a two-week unique theatrical window, on Dec. 8 Mad Heidi might be made obtainable for streaming by itself web site, MadHeidi.com, for 2 months, with all earnings from there going on to the filmmakers (and their crowdfunded buyers). Solely after that do the same old VOD portals open up. This a method Greutert is imposing on any distributor who desires a bit of the (insane) motion. “They’re enjoying alongside effectively — and even prefer it,” he notes. 

With out wanting to offer something away, on the finish of Mad Heidi there’s a considerably elaborate nod in the direction of a sequel, and Greutart says there are nonetheless loads of Swiss references left over to incorporate. However Mad Heidi 2 all depends upon the success of the primary.

“If these buyers get their a reimbursement, and even one thing like 80 p.c of their cash, I’ll have the subsequent Mad Heidi financed in three months with this method,” he says. “As a result of then individuals might be eager to go for an additional one.”

This story first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter’s Nov. 2 each day challenge on the American Film Market.