Fido (2006)

There are two basic types of zombie movies. There are the ones that take themselves too seriously and are full of gore, horror, pain, anguish and chicken giblets. But on the other hand, there are the movies that use zombies as a dark mirror in which we can see ourselves. Fido is the latter, with the elaboration of being a dark funhouse mirror reflection of 1950s America.

About thirty years before the story starts, there was a plague of "space dust" that began raising the dead. The Zombie Wars were long and horrible and ended when Zomcom, a big ugly corporation came up with the domestication collar, a retro-looking piece of technology with two red lights on it. Put the collar around a zombie's neck and voila! instant (but not too smart) free labour.



The movie runs with the concept in hilarious directions with an underlying darkness. Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) is a thoughtful little boy who worries about zombies. His father Bill (Dylan Baker) is emotionally distant because of a childhood trauma -- he "killed" his father during the zombie wars and his mother Helen (Carrie-Ann Moss) is chafing under the social constraints of the picture postcard Douglas Sirk suburban world they live in. Their new neighbours, the Bottoms include Mr Bottom, (Henry Czerny) who runs Zomcom in what seems a compassionate, humane manner. Timmy's schooling includes rifle training for all pupils, including nursery rhymes to aid their memory.

In the brain and not the chest.
Headshots are the very best.

When Helen Robinson gets the family a zombie servant whom Timmy names Fido (Billy Connelly in a terrifically nuanced role entirely without dialogue), her reasons are to keep up with the Joneses, but Fido's presence in their life unravels the marshmallow world of the family and the town.



One of the joys of this film are the details of the post-Zombie Wars town of Willard. (The choice of town name is an obvious hommage.) Burial rituals are changed, as are the services given by the preacher. Two coffins are required for a legal burial, including the all-important head coffin. The Robinson's single neighbour Mr. Theopolis (Tim Blake Nelson) has a teenaged female zombie companion called Tammy (Sonja Bennett). Old people are looked upon with suspicion because they could turn zombie at a moment's notice and there are even zomcom cadets, a Boy Scout type movement which provides Zomcom with useful snitches and future cannon fodder for the ongoing battle to domesticate the undead.



The satire and whimsy of this film draw the audience in to identifying with the characters to the point that when Timmy decapitates and buries an old lady, and Helen finds herself attracted to Fido, we go along with it gladly. This is a gently subversive film set in a brightly technicolor alternate history where towns are surrounded by high wire fences to keep out the undead who roam the barren countryside and your best friend in the world can be someone who died of a heart attack years ago.