Fido

MOVIE DETAILS

Rating: 6.7 out of 10
Director: Andrew Currie
Writer: Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie, Dennis Heaton
Star: Kesun Loder, Billy Connolly, Carrie-Anne Moss
Genres: Comedy/Drama/Horror/Sci-Fi
Release Date: March 16, 2007 (Canada)

They are not going to undulate and keep dead, really, honestly, extremely dead, like zombies. In “28 Days Later”, the nerve-thriller of Danny Boyle and its follow-up “28 Weeks Later” (in which the virus-infected beings are more zombielike than true zombies), as well as in George A. Romero’s remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” they have lately been galloping rampant. Mr. Romero maintains his zombies moving slow but steady in his fun-filled “Land of the Dead,” a 2005 entry in an epic that started with his 1968 masterpiece, “Night of the Living Dead.”

In the wryly funny satire “Fido,” the undead shuffle along like punch-drunk toddlers. Slow-moving with a shuffling, halting gait, limbs stiffened by rigor mortis these zombies are strictly old school. Stuck between life and death in a state of perpetual dusk, driven by an appetite that can only be satisfied by a mouthful of warm human flesh, they live to eat, so to speak. But these zombies are also equipped with remote-controlled obedience collars that render them harmless as a neutered Rottweiler on a short leash to their potential snacks or treats that is to say everyone who is nominally alive. Give them a little zap and they’ll mewl like kittens or growl less loudly.

Directed by Andrew Currie from a gently splattery script he wrote with Robert Chomiak and Dennis Heaton (who were all responsible for 2000’s unclassifiable “Mile Zero”), the movie takes place in what looks like small-town America during the Eisenhower era or some other kind of hot-rod ’50s fantasy world gone very slightly awry. Here everything is filmed through old haze and washed-out color; red occasionally flares up angry-bright against gray skies and the occasional green lawn. In this sweetly sunny, pop-styled land of the undead a perky Pleasantville where father always knows best except when he loses his head zombies don’t feed on the living; they serve them. They mow lawns and guard crosswalks and deliver newspapers every day. And every so often they also provide a little something extra, like the teenage zombie Tammy (Sonja Bennett), whose tight curves and chattering teeth put her owner, Mr. Theopolis (Tim Blake Nelson), in an insanely good mood

Like his characters who move slowly, Mr. Currie is also an eater of other individuals in his own species; this is clear from the cunningly made black-and-white educational reel that begins “Fido” and gives “the zombie wars” and their aftermath. Sitting at the back of the class and staring unhappily ahead is Timmy (K’Sun Ray), the only child achingly lonely of Helen and Bill Robinson (Carrie-Anne Moss and Dylan Baker). With eyes big enough to hold a lot of water, Timmy looks like he’s been cast straight out of central casting, if also made seriously uncomfortable by discharging firearms during zombie-target practice. He’s not very good at it; when a visiting containment specialist, Mr. Bottoms (an excellent Henry Czerny), asks: “How many of you have ever had to kill a zombie?,” Timmy is one of the few who doesn’t raise a hand.

What Timmy would prefer doing is playing catch, which he does soon after Helen decides to improve her station by bringing home a collared but otherwise tamed-looking zombie. (“Everybody else in the neighborhood has one,” she whines.) Named Fido played with almost no words but lots of expression by Billy Connolly the Robinson zombie quickly becomes something close to another cherished member of the family, with Bill being the exception that objects. As Bill nervously twitches and Helen beams with consumer satisfaction, Timmy and Fido bond first over a baseball and mitt, then over some accidental bloodletting involving neighbor Mrs. Henderson’s (Mary Black) poodle.

At times like these Mr. Currie appears no more interested than any number of movie directors are in making his point too bluntly or completely understood; let alone more deeply felt like that handful who have taken on racism or other big-ticket items under cover of horror-film garb. Instead, like everyone else who makes zombie movies these days except for maybe George A. Romero himself and the makers of “Shaun of the Dead,” Mr. Currie is content to graze here, nibble there, keep it light; he’d rather not go heavy or dangerously downbeat. The film sets up a contrast between the light-skinned humans and dark-skinned zombies that it doesn’t feel necessary to explore very fully, if at all. They’re just here to make you laugh, which they do easily enough, especially with a beautiful slow-building joke involving Mrs. Henderson’s husband (Kevin Tyell) that wouldn’t be as funny if you hadn’t seen every episode ever made of “Lassie” or more important in this case had its climactic dialogue memorized.

‘Fido’ Opens today nationwide. Directed by Andrew Currie; written by Mr. Currie with Robert Chomiak and Dennis Heaton; director of photography, Jan Kiesser; edited by Roger Mattiussi and Dean Soltys, music by Don MacDonald, production designer, Tony Devenyi; produced by Blake Corbet and Mary Anne Waterhouse; released by Lionsgate Films. Running time: 93 minutes.

WITH: Carrie Anne Moss (Helen Robinson), Billy Connolly (Fido), K’Sun Ray (Timmy Robinson), Dylan Baker (Bill Robinson), Henry Czerny (Mr. Bottoms), Tim Blake Nelson (Mr. Theopolis) and Alexia Fast (Cindy Bottoms).

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