Directed by: Andrew Currie (2006) Starring: Kesun Loder, Billy Connelly, Carrie-Anne Moss, Dylan Baker
As a spin off of the zombie tradition, Fido depicts a world post-zombie apocalypse. Here, everyone becomes a zombie when they die, unless they were given an expensive burial (including a coffin for the head). Zombies are used for help around the house, controlled with collars designed by ZomCon, a company that seemingly controls everything. Timmy (Loder) has started questioning whether zombies are dead or alive when his mother purchases one. She wants to maintain a good image for the new neighbors across the street, but her husband’s been afraid of zombies, as a veteran of the war.
Bill (Baker) does not get close to his son. He had to kill his father and seems to avoid developing attachments to anyone, instead going golfing with someone he hates. When Timmy tries to reach out to him, he bonds with the family’s zombie instead, naming him Fido and treating him like the new puppy. They play in the park one afternoon, but an unfortunate encounter with one of Timmy’s neighbors damages Fido’s collar, causing him to kill her and spread the zombie virus in the safe community.
The crux of the film centers on Bill’s resistance to human relationships, even though the key relationship is around Timmy and Fido. Bill is obsessed with the expensive funerals ZomCon produces and has taken out Funeral Insurance polices for everyone in the family. He is oblivious to the fact that his wife, Helen (Moss), is pregnant claiming economics as the problem, where it’s obvious that he’s afraid of forming a bond with his children. That frightened disinclination leads Fido to become Timmy’s main friend and defender against bullies as well as the sympathetic man in Helen’s life.
Fido doesn’t play around with crossing boundaries in its plot. Mr. Theopolis, Timmy’s neighbor and former employee of ZomCon, is obviously romantically involved with his zombie Tammy. The zombies are clearly brought into households as a kind of easy slavery, but it becomes clear that the zombies can think and express emotions. Just not in a verbose or clear way, and not even for all of them. Fido doesn’t attack Timmy, even when his collar isn’t working, but it’s only after becoming Timmy’s friend.
Fido takes the end of Shaun of the Dead, spins it in a 50s American suburb and expands it into the scenario for what happens to life with zombies. So many other zombie movies present them as an apocalypse story that it’s really fun to see a functioning society develop around the horror-plague.
