No Settling for Fido

I wanted to like this movie. Really I did. After being very pleasantly surprised by Shaun of the Dead, I was fully geared up for another zombedy. It also had the whole “Canadian film” angle working for it. Plus Carrie-Ann Moss is in it and she’s made some respectable career decisions, hasn’t she? Unfortunately, Fido is not one such decision.

I wanted to like this movie. Really I did. After being very pleasantly surprised by Shaun of the Dead, I was fully geared up for another zombedy. It also had the whole “Canadian film” angle working for it. Plus Carrie-Ann Moss is in it and she’s made some respectable career decisions, hasn’t she?

Unfortunately, Fido is not one such decision. Here, Andrew Currie is the lucky beneficiary of Telefilm’s not-too-discriminatory taste. Currie watched a horror movie parody or two and, sadly, walked away with the mistaken notion that cliche automatically begets humour and completely overlooks the essential role played by satire.

To see what I mean, one need look no further than the film’s opening sequence. In order to set up vital plot information, Currie opts for the over-employed but convenient “news reel” (black and white mock documentary footage with male, authoritative voice-over narration). He seems to think that this in-and-of itself is funny because we’ve seen it before. It isn’t. Something about it needs to be funny. It has to cleverly point out something about society or about news reels or even about movies. Alas, it doesn’t and the sequence just falls flat. The rest of the film feels just as awkward.

The aforementioned news reel informs us that after some radioactive accident occurred, a zombie pandemic occurred where pretty much every corpse rose from the dead. In the midst of the ensuing man versus zombie war, it was discovered that a zombie could only be stopped when its brain was destroyed. This knowledge eventually led to mankind’s victory but, in the process, man also discovered that zombies, much like Swiffer sweepers, are quite handy to have around when it comes to household chores. Using a special collar that inhibits the zombical desire to eat live human flesh, the zombies were forced into a life of servitude. Just be careful of that red safety light on the collar folks, when it goes black, your zombie will attack!

So here we are then. Timmy, a loner pre-adolescent, his cheerful and odd – but not in a funny way – mother (Moss) and father finally join the rest of society and get a zombie of their very own (played by Billy Connelly). Timmy names him “Fido” (if you think that’s funny, you’ll love this movie) and, eventually, the two become inseparable. Fido also wins over Mom and becomes Dad’s ultimate rival. Things go awry (as they tend to do when zombies are brought into the home) and everyone ends up fighting for their lives.

Never mind the relative lack of blood and gore that should saturate any and all zombie movies. Never mind the fact that the plot has more visible holes than the metro system. Never mind the wasted cast of (somewhat) homegrown talent. I’ve forgiven worse for less if it is at all funny. Fido made me chuckle once or twice. But definitely not $10 worth.

I remember the days when a Canadian film automatically meant lowered expectations and judging within a “context”. Currie is a few years too late, is all. With Ginger Snaps, Fubar, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and, yes – even Bon Cop, Bad Cop, we’ve just come much too far to settle for mediocre fare like Fido.

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