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TIFF 2006 Preview: Canada First: Fido
When Torontoist began to watch Fido we were a little under whelmed. The opening parody of 1950’s informational film, describing a world in which cosmic space dust has brought the dead back to life and given them an endless hunger for braaainsss… was a little stale (though, yes, informative) and the initial set-up, “Timmy is a lonely little boy whose mummy doesn’t listen and whose daddy doesn’t even see him” is pretty heavily telegraphed. However, as soon as the titular zombie turns up, purchased by Timmy’s mum to help around the house (so they’re not the only family on the block without one,) and played with quite amazing depth for a dialogue-free part by Billy Connolly, the film finds its stride.
Though the film rides the Lassie parody hard to explore its themes in an earnest (though obvious) fashion, the plot is interesting, and more than anything the world feels fully designed. You never doubt the reality of the characters or their situations, even if certain characters (Tim Blake Nelson’s odd Mr. Theopolis) are rather unlikely heroes.
While the gore quotient is possibly a bit high for general moviegoers and the nicey-nice quotient is a bit high for gorehounds, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. If we had to find flaw it’s that the final resolution of the story is too neat and yet too weird to be fully enjoyed, with the main characters largely unpunished for letting quite a lot of people die in zombie related “accidents”. You’ll have to admit, though… Those deaths were very entertaining. 4/5