Zombies have been a horror staple ever since George A. Romero gave a new definition to the genre with 1968's Night of the Living Dead. While there have been good - sometimes great - zombie films since then, few are able to match what Romero was able to achieve. In the nearly forty years since, we have had zombies in a mall, zombies in the forest, zombies in the city - we have even got zombies on a plane.
In my experience, which is a small sampling of zombie flicks, I do not believe we have ever had a zombie movie quite like this one. Fido is a movie that is pretty easy to describe but it is impossible to convey just how well it works without actually showing the movie. Simply put, Fido is a truly original zombie film that deserves a place in the upper echelon of zombie filmography.
Instead of the Allied powers versus the Axis powers in World War II, picture a worldwide epidemic of the dead coming back to life. Some sort of radioactive space dust descends upon the world, resurrecting the dead. The resurrected immediately turn their attentions towards the nearest living person and proceed to chow down. This was the dawn of the Zombie War. In the 1940s the world bands together, and with the scientific know-how of Dr. Geiger, are able to repel the zombie menace.
Sounds like a good movie, right? Well, that's just the set-up.
Fido picks up with life in the 1950s. Following the war, a company called Zomcon rose to prominence with their method of zombie domestication that employs a brain-munching defeating collar (complete with electric shock capability). In the wake of the war, zombies are being used to fill jobs, delivering papers and milk, walking dogs, and being a cheap work force for the general populace.
At its heart, Fido is the story of a boy and his dog. Of course, instead of a dog our boy has a zombie. Take the look of Pleasantville, the relationships of Lassie, the modern zombie feel of Shaun of the Dead, and mix in a little Edward Scissorhands-era Tim Burton, and you get an idea of all of the positive things that this has going for it.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments