“Fido” – (93 minutes, USA 2006)
“What is it boy? Is Timmy in trouble?”
In these alternative 1950s, after the “zombie wars”, life resumed in America within fenced in communities managed and policed by a corporation named Zomcon (zombie containment is their motto). Hordes of ‘untamed’ zombies roam the zones outside the communities’ perimeter, while within, domesticated zombies wearing electronic shock-collars serve the living delivering milk, papers, mowing lawns and acting as household help, etc.
In order to keep up with the neighbors, Helen Robinson (Carrie Ann Moss) buys a domesticated zombie helper (Billy Connolly), much to her neurotic husband’s (Dylan Baker) dismay. Bill Robinson has a serious phobia of zombies since childhood, when his dad and uncle tried to eat his brain.
Certainly a very sore subject around the dinner table.
Bill is distant with his son Timmy (Kesun Loder) and pretty sadistic towards the zombie helper, zapping him for the slightest reason, and repeatedly. Timmy decides to call the zombie Fido and the two become friends, inasmuch as you can with a Z-dude.
Everyone packs a gun, just in case, the lawns are bright green, roses brilliant red, cars are big and shiny in this ever so slightly heavy-handed caricature of the fifties, shot in magnificent British Columbia.
Watch the trailer:
If it weren’t for the shock-collars and grey skin, I thought the zombies could be a parable for the treatment of immigrants.
“Fido” may be predictable, but in a good way. There are no big surprises in this well made horror-comedy, comfortable like the Craftsman homes the characters live in themselves, with nice details throughout. The line quoted at the beginning of this review will definitely elicit a chuckle, and Billy Connolly’s eyes convey mischief delightfully. Tim Blake Nelson also has a nice turn as a cheerful pervert, who turns out to be the go-to guy when complications arise.
“Fido” gets 4 jellybeans.
OMG!!
Now I just have to see this one! Especially since I’m doing my own Halloween Zombie Movie Festival…. it sounds like one I’ll really enjoy! Hopefully I’ll like it as much as you did!
I hope so too, it’s a fun movie. We just watched “Sars Wars: Bangkok zombie crisis” from Thailand, and that was funny as all hell. I have to put together some thoughts on that one, as well as “survival of the dead” and “they came back”…
Sars Wars was a fun one….
Just saw “Survival of the Dead” and have to say I was a bit disappointed… too “preachy” for me and not enough zombie stuff. I realize Romero have done about all there is to do with the genre, but his latest effort was too much a rumination on what to do with a world of zombies, and the ultimate failure of man to bury his hatred and move forward to something new or better rather than a good story.
Oh I agree about “survival of the dead”, it was neither scary nor meaningful. Even though he has better budgets to work with, the plot got lost, so to speak…