Fido Movie Review – A Boy and His Zombie

Runtime: 93 minutes

Release Date: March 16, 2007

Rating: R

Director: Andrew Currie

In another universe that pretty much looks like Earth in the 1950s, space radiation led to the dead coming back to life as zombies. Though the two sides battled it out, humans eventually won. That led to humans buying and selling zombies as commodities. They use them for everything from security guards to house boys.

Bill is a husband and father who fought in the zombie wars and now wants nothing to do with zombies in any shape or size. That makes it a little unusual when his wife Helen decides to bring home one for their house. Timmy, their son, isn't too sure about the zombie but gives it the name Fido, which his father dislikes because he doesn't think zombies deserve names and because he worries that his son will grow too attached to the zombie.

Though Fido wears the same collar that others do to keep the zombies in line, his collar breaks. After escaping from the yard, he attacks a neighbor and turns her into one of the dead. The local security company manage to stop the second zombie from infecting others and causing a second outbreak, but the company must investigate to find out which zombie got loose. Then it kind of turns into a movie about a boy and his zombie against the world.

Fido is one of those movies that I heard about a lot and never got the chance to watch. In fact, I even added it to my Netflix queue a few years ago. When I renewed my membership last year, it was one of the only things still in my list from back then. Despite never watching it, I knew I had to when I found out it was expiring soon.

Though it has a great premise, it wasn't my favorite. While it has some funny moments and some good acting, there was just something I didn't like about it. Carrie-Anne Moss is great as Helen, the housewife stuck between the life she always wanted and the life she has, and K'Sun Ray did a good job as the adorable little scamp Timmy. Billy Connolly did a good job as the zombie too.

While I wanted to like it, there was just something a little too off putting about the story. Helen winds up falling for Fido and treating him more like a friend and later a boyfriend than she does a servant. When she finally ends up with him at the end, I can safely say that I was probably the only person not rooting for the two of them.

Helen isn't a very good character either. While I get that she's an unhappy housewife, she constantly laughs and pokes fun at her husband. We're supposed to laugh because we're not supposed to like him, but he's basically a veteran who helped save millions of people from becoming zombies. Most movies ask us to hate zombies because they will eat our faces off and kill us, but this movie wants us to root for those same characters.

Now that I've seen Fido, I can cross it off my list. I know a lot of people loved it, but I wasn't a big fan.