Fido - O Mascote

A year or so ago, I was watching the TV news when a story was broadcast about a zombie movie being filmed in my area. Since then I have paid particular attention to this movie called 'Fido' as it finished production and began playing at festivals. Two weeks ago Fido began playing in my local theater. And, just yesterday, I read a newspaper article which stated Fido is not attracting audiences in it's limited release, with the exception of our local theater. In fact, here it is outdrawing all other shows at The Paramount Theater, including 300. Of course, this makes sense as many locals want to see their city on screen or spot themselves roaming around in zombie make-up. And for any other locals who haven't seen Fido yet but are considering it, I can say there are many images on screen, from the school to city park to the forbidden zone, that you will recognize. In fact, they make the Okanagan Valley look beautiful. That's right beautiful scenery in a zombie movie! However, Fido itself is a very good movie. Yes, despite its flaws, it is better then most of the 20 other movies playing in my local market. Fido is best described as an episode of Lassie in which the collie has been replaced by a member of the undead. This is a clever premise. And the movie even goes further by taking advantage of the 1950's emphasize on conformity and playing up the cold-war paranoia which led to McCarthyism. Furthermore, it builds on the notion that zombies can be tamed or trained which George Romero first introduced in Day Of The Dead.

K'Sun Ray plays a small town boy who's mother (Carrie-Ann Moss) longs for a zombie servant so she can be like all the other house wives on her block. However, his dad (Dylan Baker) is against the idea as he once had to kill his own 'zombie father'. Eventually, the family does acquire a zombie named 'Fido' (played by Billy Connolly), and adjusts to life with the undead. Billy Connolly was inspired casting. He is able to convey Fido's confusion, longing, hatred, and loyalty through only his eyes, lumbering body, and grunts. Connolly shows that he can play understated characters better than his outrageously comedic ones. This is his best role since Mrs. Brown.

Fido follows in the footsteps of other recent zomcoms such as Shawn Of The Dead and Zombie Honeymoon. Being someone who appreciates Bruce Campbell and Misty Mundae movies more than Eli Roth and Jigsaw ones, I prefer humor over gore in my horror. However, I understand the criticism of those horror fans who feel there is not enough 'undead carnage' in Fido. Yet, I am sure patient viewers will be rewarded by the films gentle humor.

The movie does break down in it's third act. It's as if the writers were so wrapped up in the cute premise of domesticated zombies in the 1950s, they forgot about the story arc. However, given my interest in horror comedies and my appreciation for seeing the neighborhood on screen, I rate Fido 9 out of 10.

At a risk of sounding slightly sacrilegious, on first viewing I'm kind of inclined to put this right up on a par with 'Shaun of the Dead'. Now, given I view Simon Pegg as an unquestionable comedy genius, I realise this is a rather big claim. And to what extent you agree with that last statement may be a good preliminary gauge of whether 'Fido' will appeal to you.

In a way the comedy picks up where 'Shaun' left off, except we're back in the original 1950s Living Dead-era stereotypical middle-American small town. The Zombie Wars are over and zombies themselves are becoming more well-adjusted, useful members of the community. This, so we're informed at the outset, is largely thanks to the scientific advances made by the good people at Zomcom - a nice play on romantic comedy perhaps?

The beauty of the film lies in its dead-pan depiction of a respectable neighbourhood maintaining core values while making a place for zombies and the special hazards they pose. The charm and balance with which it does this is near enough perfect. Themes you might expect from a more mainstream kitsch comedy come through - the veneer of good clean living, keeping up appearances, repressed emotion, muddled parental values, social decorum and the plight of the alienated individual.

It's a story told with happy heart and wide appeal that is brought to life vividly by the film's all-round strong cast. It's one of those works where it really shows through that everyone involved got a kick out of taking part. It's also fun imagining what Billy Connelly learning his script must have been like...

So in conclusion, it is probable you will appreciate the humour of this film unless your father tried to eat you.

Saw this movie at the Vancouver Film Festival and thought it was deadly smart, stylish, and FUNNY.

The cast was ROCK SOLID. Great work by Carrie Anne Moss, Dylan Baker, Tim Blake Nelson, Billy Connelly and up and comer, Alexia Fast.

Weirdly, I found myself thinking about the movie for days after seeing it.

Writers, Dennis Heaton, Robert Chomiak and Andrew Currie layered in a lot of political subtext - but didn't whack you over the head with it.

The world they created had depth, and made sense. There is a giddy carnivorous spirit to this movie.

FIDO is guaranteed to cure grumpiness.

Loved it!!!

Fido is a cute comedy that deserves wider recognition, especially considering the mainstream crap that is supposed to entertain us these days.

As has already been pointed out, this is hardly a real zombie film, but rather a sweet satire that employs the undead to point fingers. While there are necessarily some bloody scenes, there is almost no gore and the way this movie is presented (feel-good 50s style), I can't imagine anyone being actually scared or turned off by Fido & his fellow sufferers.

While the cast is generally good, I felt that Moss and Nelson stood out. The humor is not in-your-face, but rather subdued; there's a lot of attention to detail and I caught myself smiling benignly several throughout the movie. This is certainly no masterpiece of cinema, but it doesn't strive to be - instead, Currie succeeds in delivering a heart-warming black comedy.

OK, I didn't know what to expect when I saw the cover to Fido, honestly when I came across it in the video store I was tempted to rent this movie, but nothing about it really grabbed my attention. But when I was looking around in Netflix, they were advertising this like crazy if I liked "goofy" scary movies, so I figured to just give it a shot. I'm so glad that I did watch it, this was just a great movie, it was absolutely hilarious and so charming to watch. Like I said, it's Pleasantville meets Night of the Living Dead, it's just a great concept, what does happen after a mega zombie attack? As we see in another zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead, they have fun by making the zombies left over as "handy" citizens. This is a very overlooked horror/comedy movie, I think a lot of people were just so blown away with Shaun of the Dead that this got the boot. But it's a great story and the cast was perfect and made this into just a really funny movie.

In a 1950s alternate universe where radiation from space has turned the dead into zombies. This radiation still plagues humanity, as all those who die after the original contamination turn into the undead. In order to continue living normal lives, communities are fenced with the help of a governing corporation named Zomcon. Zomcon provides collars with accompanying remote controls to control the zombies' hunger for flesh so as to use them as slaves or servants. In the town of Willard, a housewife ,Helen, buys a zombie in spite of her husband Bill's zombie phobia. Their son, Timmy, befriends the zombie, naming him "Fido". One day Fido's collar malfunctions and he kills their next door neighbor, who turns into a zombie. Timmy "kills" the zombified neighbor. When a pair of local bullies are blamed for the missing neighbor, they capture Fido and Timmy. Helen comes and rescues Timmy and Fido from the bullies and they try to forget about the whole thing. Several days later, the neighbor's body is found and the murder is traced back to Fido, who is taken away to Zomcon where the public is told he will be destroyed. Timmy learns through a friend that Fido is simply working in a factory at Zomcon. Timmy sets out to rescue him with the help from his neighbor with a zombie girlfriend in hopes to get Fido back.

I really do highly recommend this movie if you get the chance to see it, it's so silly but a lot of fun. Billy Connelly did a great job as Fido and really brought, no pun intended, a lot of life into the character. I think the scene that made me laugh the most was when Timmy has to burry the old lady that Fido attacked and killed, his last words to her were so funny, "you weren't really nice, but you liked flowers, so…" and he buries her in the garden. Not to mention the neighbor with the zombie girlfriend, sick, disturbing, wrong, but classic laughs. I still love how even though this is like the Leave It To Beaver-esquire type of world, there still is a lot of gore in the movie. So if you do have a chance to see Fido, take it, I promise some good laughs.

9/10