Fido

When you see the cover of the DVD you're convinced this is some Class B cheesy cheapie, a film made for $1,000 in somebody's backyard.

Wrong!

This is quality material and really good. It's a comedy and a clever one at that. It also is very touching in spots, with a nice spot of kindness. The production values are very good (this looks excellent), the actors are known, the film's direction and sets are great. It's amazing. Who would have thought?

Carrie-Ann Moss, playing against-type, is terrific, as"Helen Robinson," the June Cleaver-like wife; Billy Connolly is great as the grunting good-hearted zombie "Fido;" Tim Blake Nelson ("Mr. Theopolis") is a hoot is the neighbor with the sexy zombie girlfriend "Tammy," and Henry Czerny and Dylan Baker as dads (check) are excellent, too K'Sun Ray as young "Timmy Robinson," shouldn't be overlooked, either. In fact, he probably has more lines in the movie than anyone.

If I explain the story it will sound so stupid that few of you would watch it. You'll just have to take the word of the people here who liked it and found it to be a very, very pleasant surprise. You need a dark sense of humor, though; an appreciation of the absurd.

I have pass on this movie so many times because of the cover , when i looked at reviews on here and i had to see this movie.

When i was reading plot, i thinking it dose not sound that good, i so sat thinking, i don't think i would like this movie and i was think i was going waste hour and half of my life.

Soon as put on i was total shocked how different this zombie is, i thought this movie was fantastic, i could not believe not seen it before, the whole story was great idea and this movie did have some nice gory scenes however this movie more about boy being friend with zombie building connections with Fido the boy named the zombie Fido.

Great fun movie 8 out of 10

Set in a middle class neighborhood in the imaginary town of Willard in the 1950s, this dark comedy with a light touch toys with such American obsessions as gun mania and violence, materialism and keeping up with the Joneses, fear of others, slavery, golf, and the disposing of the dead. Yes, it all sounds a bit heavy, but trust me on this, it's nearly as light as a feather.

Zombies are featured prominently among the characters. Crucial questions arise, such as: who will become a zombie (90% of the Willard folks choose this final path, while only 10% prefer a traditional funeral)? Who owns how many Zombies to do their bidding like robots (they've become a mark of social status)? And, what is the range of possible relationships that can be worked out between the living and the sort of reincarnated dead?

Somehow, director Andrew Currie, who also co-wrote the lively screenplay (with Robert Chomiak and Dennis Heaton), keeps this improbable material percolating along for an hour and a half without once faltering for want of a good laugh. A super cast helps: Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, Dylan Baker, Henry Czerny, Tim Blake Nelson, Mary Black and Sonja Bennett are the principals, aided by young K'Sun Ray as Timmy, the innocent kid with a good heart who acts as fair witness to all the lunacy of the grownups. (Having seen her only in "Memento" and "The Matrix," I had no idea that Ms. Moss had such fine comedienne chops.)

The production design and music are exquisitely 50s, to a tee. Maybe this one isn't for everybody. It surely will be a hard film to beat for my annual Bizarro Award. But intelligent comedies that stay funny from start to finish are among the hardest won achievements in movie-making. For me anyway, "Fido" is a hoot! My grades: 8.5/10 (A-) (Seen on 01/30/07)

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.

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