A 2007 zombie comedy with a 71% Rotten Tomatoes score serves as a perfect follow-up to the themes explored in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living ᴅᴇᴀᴅ franchise. While plenty of people point to Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ as a perfect zombie comedy in the form of Romero movies, the 2007 Canadian zombie comedy Fido deserves a lot more credit.
Directed by Andrew Currie, the underrated Fido takes place in a world after humans have already won the zombie apocalypse (known as the Zombie Wars). A company called ZomCom invented collars that control the zombie’s hunger for flesh, and they sell them to use on surviving zombies to serve as servants for humanity.
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly plays a zombie that one family purchases, and their son Timmy names him Fido. However, when Fido’s collar malfunctions, and he kills a local woman, panic spreads through the idealistic Pleasantville-esque town, and ZomCom is there to both profit from and capitalize on the situation. It is a perfect morality tale from Romero’s playbook.
Fido Perfectly Plays Into The Anti-Consumerism Themes From Romero’s Zombie Movies
Romero’s Movies Rallied Against Consumerism & Capitalistic Control Of Lives
Fido is about a young boy named Timmy and his pet zombie Fido, with the references to Lᴀssie Come Home obvious throughout the movie. However, there is an underlying plot that involves the company ZomCom, and its control of the world as they hold the one thing that keeps the zombies at bay. They also believe money sells safety, and without money, they don’t care.
Having this as a comedy doesn’t change anything. Romero loved Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and felt it treated zombies respectfully. This is why Romero invited Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright to play zombies in Land of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Fido might not get mentioned in the discussions of the best zombie comedies, but it plays well alongside Romero’s movies.
Romero depicted how governments and corporations exert control over the world.
Dawn of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ takes place in a shopping mall, allowing Romero to deliver a direct attack against consumerism and capitalism, highlighting how neither of these things matters during a zombie apocalypse. In Day of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and Land of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, Romero depicted how governments and corporations exert control over the world during the zombie apocalypse.
This is also what happens in Fido, where ZomCom decides who lives and dies, and it is all about the interests of the stockholders. This is a real-world situation, where people live and die based on what their governments decide alongside the billionaires. Romero hated this and rallied against it in his movies, and Fido follows suit.
Fido Remains One Of The 2000s’ Most Overlooked Zombie Movies
Fido Stands Up Well With Shaun Of The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ
There is no argument that Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ might be the funniest zombie comedy ever made. However, it is unfair to overlook the film that came out two years later. Fido was smart in that it never tried to replicate what made Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ great. Instead, it focused on doing something completely different by focusing on the world after the zombie apocalypse.
Placing it in an idyllic world similar to Pleasantville and then hiring a fantastic cast that included names like Carrie-Anne Moss, Tim Blake Nelson, and Dylan Baker also helped. The comedy was not as slapstick as some of Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, but it had a smart message about society and how humans will never allow even zombies to ruin their chance to make money.
For anyone looking for something different in a zombie comedy, and who loves the messages that George A. Romero focused on in his Living ᴅᴇᴀᴅ movies, Fido offers that in surplus. It doesn’t get the same attention as other zombie comedies, but it deserves any accolades it can get.
