Second-chance movie review: “Fido”
Hard to believe this film came out in 2006, but “Fido” is definitely worth checking out: an alleged zombie flick, this is far more a black social comedy than it is a horror spoof. I caught the first 8 minutes of it at a certain famous film festival that takes place in mid-Jan in Utah, but had to head to another film that was getting more buzz. I told myself I’d circle back and watch the whole thing…. and it took me until last night to get that done.
What the film’s creator’s got right:
I was pleasantly surprised. It was funny, bizarre, unique, smart, well-acted, well-shot and entertaining, so 3 stars out of 4. Billy Connolly is unrecognizable as the title character (that’s fine; he’s playing a zombie, for christ’s sake, so it’s not like he’s up there in Elephant Man territory…), and Carrie-Anne Moss was stunning as the mom — gorgeous, smart, flirtatious, multi-dimensional — and for the first time, I really wanted to take her home, take off that apron, and get into a long-term, intelllectually significant and socially committed relationship with her, if you know what I mean.
But good acting all around. It would be easy to go way over the top with this kind of material, but there’s a lot of control here, which works for the overall effect.
The tone is generally upbeat, even tongue-in-cheek, and they carefully balance the fact the protagonist is a young (and vulnerable) little boy against the needs of the larger narrative, without doing extremely horrible things to said kid.
Also, it’s a great-looking film, from the too-perfect 50s suburban neighborhood, the cars, the clothes and other details, to the framing and composition.
What the distributors got wrong:
Nearly everything? I mean, do YOU remember this film opening in your town? I don’t, and I was looking for it.
Also, this is the worst poster imaginable for this film. The Fido character turns out to be a decent guy, but the public is going to look at the art and say “Another zombie film. Meh.” And they’d be right — nothing says this is a comedy, nothing says this has a happy ending, nothing says C-A Moss is in this, smoking it up with hotness. All it says is you’ll have your face eaten off by an overly made-up actor from the UK — and that you can see in “28 Days Later” or “Shaun of the Dead”.
But this screw-up shouldn’t stop you, the savvy DVD renter or video-file downloader, right?
Heck, I’d even recommend this as a date movie. Not a first-date movie unless you know the other person REALLY, REALLY well, but trust your uncle Jimi on this one.
James Hyatt 