Fido (2006) Encore Review

I haven’t heard of the film Fido and after some searching I was finally able to find it, and sit down and watch the movie. Fido is a surprisingly well made and the idea behind the film is also something interesting and not to far out of the zombie cliché world.

The town of Willard is like many 1950’s type of towns. You have beautiful homes, green lush lawns, a gorgeous city park and zombies. (Insert the sound of breaks squealing to a stop).

Did I say ZOMBIES?? Yes, Yes I did the town of Willard and the world in which this film takes place had the Great Zombie War. It wasn’t till the genius Dr. Geiger determines that the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot them in the head did humanity start winning the war. The great Doctor takes it one step further and develops control collars that allow the Zombies to interact with people and curb their hunger for human flesh.

We are introduced to those wonderful facts through a News Reel type of movie that plays before we get into the meet of the movie. If you’ve ever seen any of those old Atomic Bomb movies where people are told to “duck and cover” imagine that if you will. The way this film is done and spliced with some vintage WW2 film footage was quite intriguing. It was also a great way to introduce us to the world that Willard is in.

I will also say that this movie is your typical feel good family movie where a boy falls in love with his Zombie, irr I mean pet. Fido, the zombie his mother gets, becomes a family member much like a dog would in the old shows like Lassie. The fact that Timmy consistently says things like “Fetch boy”, “Good boy”, or in one seen, “I knew you wouldn’t eat me boy.”

One of my favorite comedic moments is when Fido comes home and Timmy’s mother asks where Timmy is and Fido lets out a whine and wants her to follow him. I had a laugh out loud moment when I thought back to all those Lassie jokes where a dog barks and people would ask, “Where’s Timmy boy?”.

The film also has some other small comedic pieces to help move the movie and plot along. You get to watch the zombies do everything in the town from assisting the milkman to delivering the local paper.

The movie does a great job of making you feel like your set back in the 1950’s as I mentioned before. I want to add to that point as there was some great use of automobiles in the film and even cars with those HUGE white walls. Also, the fact that Timmy’s mother felt she needed a Zombie to keep up with the neighbors as they where the only family without one. The fact she also had to take a pie over to welcome the new neighbors to the neighborhood.

Now, the movie isn’t all just laughs as there is some drama behind the movie. Timmy’s father for example has a zombie phobia because his 1 kill during the Zombie war was a family member. We also see poor Timmy stuck with a father who really doesn’t know how to relate to him and would rather be golfing. Of course there are other protagonists such as 2 local bullies, and an old lady neighbor who gives Timmy the riot act for not putting his bike away. Also in many pet/child movies something happens to Fido in which Timmy must go and rescue him.

Overall, I was pleasantly really surprised by this film and would highly recommend the film to others. The cast has some well now actors/actresses such as Carrie-Ann Moss playing Timmy’s mother. Fido is played by comedian Billy Connolly who was Uncle Monty in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and was in a great film called Mrs. Brown. The young boy, K’Sun Ray, did an amazing job considering this was his first movie role according to IMDB.com.

So if you’re in the mood for a light hearted movie with a bit of zombies go out and find this movie, or add it to your Netflix queue. This film actually is low enough on the blood and gore I’d recommend it as an overall family film. Just keep one thing in mind when doing this, and that it is a zombie film and you must have your flesh eating and shots to the head.