Fido

Fido is an imaginative horror comedy from director Andrew Currie in which zombies serve as house pets and manual laborers in a "Leave it to Beaver" type ideal suburban community called Willard. It seems that in an alternate 1950s, earth was bombarded by radioactive particles, causing the dead to rise from their graves and leading to the Zombie War between humans and those trying to eat their flesh. Scientists were able to create anti-zombie security systems and eventually perfected an electronic collar that could fully suppress the zombies' desire to eat people. These newly domesticated zombies were then put to use as butlers, gardeners, and servants in other capacities. Now all the homemakers in 1950s suburbia walk around smiling happily with their very own zombie in tow (every respectable family has one). It's a clever, truly bizarre concept that lends itself nicely to the parody of everything from trophy wives to class culture, American defense politics to crisis capitalism. In fact, my only really complaint here is that it strives to do too much too rapidly. The film is such a jumble of different genres and satirical targets that it's hard to find a real through-line that might solidify an intention beyond silliness. As it is, it's still a funny from start to finish comedy with miraculously original gags, but there's clearly a missed opportunity to really sharpen the edges of the film and create a more cutthroat national send up a la Thank You For Smoking. Instead we get something fun, but actually quite unserviceable. It lobs softballs when it should be throwing daggers.

The more specific events of the story focus on a particular family, the generically named Robinsons, who are the very last people on their block to get a zombie of their own. Mrs. Robinson (Carrie Anne-Moss) could no longer handle the shame of being the only wife on the block who couldn't brag about her zombie and bought one against the orders of her husband. Mr. Robinson, (Dylan Baker) the family's shrewish patriarch, is more than a little bit skeptical about the safety of having a zombie in the house. It turns out that his bullying accusations actually hold some water when the family zombie, Fido, (Billy Connolly) has a collar malfunction and eats one of the neighbors while playing fetch in the park. The littlest Robinson, social outcast Timmy, (K'Sun Ray) grows much too attached to Fido to confess his bad behavior, though. With his preoccupied father ignoring him, his superficial mother putting him down, and all his classmates ganging up on him, Fido becomes Timmy's only friend. Besides, no one really liked Mrs. Henderson.

Of course, the problem is that Mrs. Henderson later rises from the dead and begins killing people which inevitably restarts the zombie threat. There's really not a whole lot of suspense at work here, though. The zombies are purely comic devices and they do their job pretty well. By film's end, the movie has kind of devolved into a more aimless, horror prototype, but it's a lot of fun while it lasts. It's vicious wit is elevated by great deadpan performances by the talented cast and Currie and Co. really deliver a riotous screenplay full of big laughs and light commentary that whiz by almost too efficiently. Plus, any movie where a government official can very intensely and very seriously ask a class of school children "So, who here has killed a zombie?" is pretty much OK by me.

Grade: B