Zombies, zombies, zombies. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) opened up a floodgate when it was released in America in the summer of 2003. Since then we’ve gotten big-budget zombies and low-budget zombies, slow-moving zombies and fast-moving zombies, serious zombies and funny zombies, and even a dose of good old-fashioned George A. Romero zombies with his fourth installment in his “Dead” series Land of the Dead (2005) and the fifth coming up this year with Diary of the Dead. It would seem that at this point there simply isn’t anything more to say regarding zombies, especially if you’ve added Max Brooks’ excellent books The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War to the exhaustive repertoire. I would say the only (intentional) comedy done right regarding zombies is the brilliant 2004 Shaun of the Dead, and didn’t it say it all? Do we really need another zom-com? This question is answered with 2006’s Fido – just released on DVD.

Director Andrew Currie’s Fido is a razor-sharp satire that takes place in an alternate version of 1950s America. Thanks to the brilliant and funny 50s education film that introduces the movie, we learn that the film sticks to the standard Romero zombie rules of his 1968 masterpiece Night of the Living Dead. No one knows why the dead are reanimating. The moment someone dies (or is bitten by the living dead), they turn into a slow-moving rotting cannibal corpse. The main twist in Fido is that the government has developed an electronic mind-controlling collar that makes the zombie obedient. The communities can then use their zombies as robots, servants, or slaves. That is, unless something goes wrong with the collar. The plot centers itself around a boy – Timmy - who develops an eerie attachment to his zombie (not unlike another boy named Timmy and his dog Lassie).

Our Timmy proudly names his zombie Fido and not only plays catch with him, but also uses him to dispose of the schoolyard bullies. Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Trilogy) plays Timmy’s mother and Dylan Baker (Happiness) is his emotionally-stunted father. Fido is played by Scottish actor/comedian Billy Connelly (The Boondock Saints). It’s marvelous how he doesn’t say a word in the film, but displays an amazing range of emotions – for a zombie, anyway. It’s a great performance. Ultimately, the movie is all about tone. I can say I laughed out loud several times at some of the darker moments. It sustains an amazing balancing act between horror, comedy, and straight-up satire and never lets it up. What you are seeing, at times, would be considered horrific in any other movie, but in this film it is blatantly hilarious, although never implausible given the circumstances. Fido is one of those movies, like Shaun of the Dead, where you can imagine that, if this situation were to actually occur, this would be exactly how we humans would logically react. We wouldn’t hole up in a mall. We would watch the news on television in our living rooms and, eventually, try to live with the creatures if we couldn’t wipe them out. Fido is definitely worth a look for those that think the zombie movie has yet again run its course. It may surprise you.