Horror-comedy is a hard genre. It can fail much more likely than normal comedy or normal horror. Many try, many fail. Fortunately, we have the genre done right, with movies like Shaun of the Dead or Fido. Basically Fido proves that you can add zombies to almost anything and it will produce a result that’s many times better than the original product. In this case, we have Leave it to Beaver, zombified, and transformed into a not-so-family comedy. (And yes, it’s a much better result.)

Fido begins with an informative reel of a zombie outbreak that happened back in the 50’s. This left a devastating impact on society, leaving almost every town in quarantine. With towns in danger and the body count rising, somebody had to take control. Saving the human race, a scientist invents a collar that you simply clip onto a zombie, taming it. Thanks to the collar, people now own zombies as house hold pets. That’s right, they’re all the rage, and everyone had one. Throughout the movie, you see zombies mowing the lawn, tending to flowerbeds, and even walking the dog. When a lonely kid named Timmy gets one, he falls in love and the movie turns into heartwarming story about a boy and …his zombie. Unfortunately, and inevitably, something goes wrong, and Timmy has to cover up the mess to protect his zombie from being put down.

The acting is perfect. We have the kid’s mother played by Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), who is constantly delivering all these “mom” lines that really take Fido into raging absurdity. She keeps the straightest face delivering lines that are accepted by the characters in the story, but has the audience laughing in total disbelief and amusement. This adds to the warped world in Fido. We also have Timmy’s neglecting father played by Dylan Baker(Across the Universe), who basically just acts nervous the entire movie. We also have K’Sun Ray playing Timmy, as a typical happy kid, and his zombie played by Billy Conolly(Timeline). Great performances all around strengthen the movie, drawing us closer to the characters and the zany world they live in.

Fido happens to be Andrew Currie’s debut in directing. He makes Fido feel like a lighthearted family comedy, even if it has some stomach-churning zombie gore. In fact, he did this so well that the MPAA originally rated the film PG-13, but then changed the rating to an R. Making the movie take place in the 50’s allowed Currie to make the film feel classic, and makes you feel more attracted to the crazy world that the characters live in, and in some places, envying it.