Reviews

Fido

Dark, potent, gory

By TOM MEEK | July 3, 2007

3.0 Stars

FIDO: A little bit of everything silly.

At the end of Shaun of the Dead, after the streets have been cleared of flesh-eating hordes, a best-friend-turned-zombie is chained up in a back yard as sort of a pet. If you carried on from there, set your movie in a Cleaver-happy 1950s enclave, and mixed in a McCarthy-esque political climate that perpetuates fear, you’d have Fido. In the aftermath of the great Zombie Wars, order is maintained by a Halliburton-like conglomerate called ZomCon, and well-to-dos have the undead as slave labor and servants held in check by ZomCon radio control collars. Timmy (K’Sun Ray) is a schoolyard outcast who bonds with the family’s new walking-dead title butler (Billy Connolly in a film-making performance). But what about the creepy sexual tension that develops between Timmy’s mom (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Fido while dad (Dylan Baker) looms as a backbiting pissant? And that rumor about Fido’s eating the next-door neighbor? The whole shebang may sound silly, but director Andrew Currie stews together gore, social commentary, screwball camp, and dark comedy with savory potency.

Related: The X-Files: I Want To Believe, Hindsight, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, More

The X-Files: I Want To Believe
X-Files creator Chris Carter resurrects Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, only they’re no longer special, and neither are they agents.
Hindsight
“I’m not much on rear-window ethics,” quips Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 masterpiece.
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes 2006, Ken Loach’s drama explores the tensions within an IRA guerrilla unit during the rebellion of 1920-’21.
Die Große Stille|Into Great Silence
In 1984, documentary filmmaker Philip Gröning asked the Carthusian monastic order for permission to film at one of the world’s most ascetic monasteries.
Film among the ruins
Helmut Käutner, as an eloquent narrative stylist, is the peer of his contemporaries William Wyler, Frank Borzage, Michael Powell, and Vincente Minnelli.
Bridge to Terabithia
Walden Media, the movie production company behind Charlotte’s Web and The Chronicles of Narnia , works its adaptation alchemy on Katherine Paterson’s Newbery winner with the usual middling results. Watch the trailer for Bridge to Terabithia (QuickTime)
Danielson: A Family Movie
J.L. Aronson’s documentary about Daniel Smith’s religion-inspired family rock band, who made a point of playing in nurse uniforms, has a lot going for it: a cast of cuties, cool cameos, fun costumes.
Matthew Barney: No Restraint
For an artist/filmmaker best known for impenetrable, high-budget, art-gore-sex-sculpture movies, Matthew Barney comes across as a pretty approachable dude in Alison Chernick’s documentary about his Drawing Restraint 9 .
Charlotte's Web
This live-action adaptation of E.B. White’s hallowed classic runs out of gas once the cows start farting. Watch the trailer for Charlotte's Web (QuickTime)
Iraq in Fragments
James Longley’s documentary about the War in Iraq isn’t groundbreaking, but it does put a face on the grim reality of Iraqi life and the mounting anti-American sentiment (“They are worse than 100 Saddams”). Watch the trailer for Iraq in Fragments
Baby Mama
Not even SNL’s whipsmart Tina Fey and Amy Poehler can save writer/director Michael McCuller’s pregnancy comedy from its fate as another condescending, self-congratulatory fantasy of maternal bliss.
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