Fido: Zombies Deprived of Necessary Political Subtext

You think they’re dead, these zombie-film parodies, but one after another, they keep lumbering back. Not much brain activity, alas, in this Canadian indie, which rather nonhilariously dispatches its walking corpses to ’50s suburbia, where they’re put to work as domestic servants and gardeners. For anyone who hasn’t pictured the movie’s 91 minutes already: In sunny Willard, docile, gray-faced zombies carry golf clubs and duly provide target practice for Red Scare–era schoolkids, until a particularly ravenous ghoul takes a chunk out of old Mrs. Henderson’s fleshy arm. Within 20 minutes, Vancouver-based writer-director Andrew Currie leads us to stop expecting actual jokes while squandering the talents of an overqualified cast that includes Dylan Baker and Carrie-Anne Moss as the film’s Ward and June Cleaver, and Scottish actor Billy Connolly as the titular zombie-cum-pet and loyal pal of the couple’s young son, Timmy (K’Sun Ray). The movie’s Pleasantville sets are well designed on a slim budget, but the ’50s-style restraint extends to Currie’s tame direction and generally makes a zombie lover hungry for the real deal à la 28 Weeks Later.