Review - Fido(2007)

by Mr. Blunderson

written by Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie, Dennis Heaton
directed by Andrew Curry
rated R for zombie related violence

It was to be a weekend of zombie flicks here at the Blunderson household, but a nasty cold sidelined both Mrs. Blunderson and myself and if you had visited us any time over the last few days and didn't know we were walking around in a cold medicine stupor you might have thought we were getting a little too into our little theme weekend here.

But by late Sunday night we were ready to soldier on and put in the first of two Zombie titles we had rented over the weekend. We have long wanted to see Fido, and finally had our chance since the shelf it was on at the video store was the only one that didn't have at least four people standing in front of it (mouths agape and wide eyed).

The premise of Fido seems to come from a moment found in the final frames of Shawn of the Dead where zombies were found to be able to do menial tasks like being cart attendants at the shops or working in the service industry. Fido takes that idea and runs with it for about an hour and half in a post-zombie apocalypse set in the suburban 1950's.

There are a couple of interesting ideas at play here. First of all, this is perhaps the first film (unless I am mistaken) to show the world after the "zombie war." Second, it depicts that world as a place where some zombies have been able to be domesticated (with the use of a collar) to be servants for families that want to appear well-to-do (think of it as an extension of the my yard is greener than yours sort of boorah spoorah). Finally it attempts to show that despite an unyielding hunger for human flesh, there might yet be some humanity left in the walking dead after all (although I believe this might have been covered in Land of the Dead. I haven't seen it but have heard rumblings). Some potential for a thoughtful and funny film, yet it seems to never quite arrive at any of those possibilities.

An ineffectual father and husband finds the affections of his son and wife being draped upon their newly installed zombie (the eponymous Fido) yet even if you give into the suspension of disbelief that has to take place to buy into a lot of aspects of this story, one still has to wonder, how can these good folks stand the stench of what must be a rotting decaying corpse? Or the fact that despite reciprocating said love the zombie still manages to maim and kill. At lease, to borrow a phrase from the mighty Schwarzeneggar, "they were all bad."

The plot as explained on the box describes the film as being about a boy who's only friend is a zombie, and when he accidentally eats a neighbor he has to go to extreme measures to keep his animated corpse of a friend in the family. It would have been nice to see the filmmakers take a more Of Mice & Men sort of approach than the road they ultimately took, but in the end the initial premise is the most novel and original idea that ever comes across... except as I mentioned before that ideas came from a superior effort in the genre of horror spoofing released in 2004.

Another thing I take issue with is the pacing of this film. Despite it's lean 91 minute runtime, the first two acts plod along at such a slow and uneven clip Fido felt a much longer than that. Unless you are a true fan of the zombie sub genre of horror, or enjoy a a horror comedy and have infinite patience, I couldn't recommend this movie in good conscience. As such, Fido rates a "Meh" on the Mr. Blunderson scale.

You could always go rent My Boyfriend's Back, it's old and lame but funnier than anything I saw in Fido.