A radioactive space cloud brings the dead back to life as zombies hungry for human flesh. A scientist manages to create a collar that makes the undead completely harmless, serviceable creatures who are then sold as butlers or handymen for American families.
Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) views with some curiosity the zombie his mother Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) purchased against her husband's (Dylan Baker) wishes.
Timmy becomes friends with the living dead and calls him Fido (Billy Connolly).
Only in a respectable and self-righteous society having a zombie friend is not the best, especially when the collar breaks because of a stupid old lady...
The prologue of this Canadian independent film, a (fake) documentary explaining the origin of the zombie plague, is a particularly successful, brilliant incipit.
The film itself has a simple development: it is a story of friendship between several as was so much the way in the fantasy-fantasy-science genre comedies of the 1980s.
In a 1950s America that is a parody of itself, absolute respectability prevails: everything must appear perfect, family is an important institution, and you must never have less wealth in your home than your neighbors possess, zombies attached.
Feelings are relegated to a background.
Timmy, on the other hand, is intrigued by the zombie, wanting him as a friend at all costs. And his neighbor, a nerdy scientist, is also happy because he has a zombie girlfriend but cannot flaunt his relationship in public.
And it is only with the final revolt in the collar-making enterprise that emotionality becomes freedom of expression.
Very good Connolly as Fido: although he never speaks his looks are often eloquent and irresistible (as when he "comments" on the happy zombie with her boyfriend as opposed to his masters, always fighting even at night).
A sympathetic and successful critique of consumerist society in all its forms.
Zombies are decisively Romerian last-ditch: they are former men who drop their cannibalistic instincts when their emotions are released. With or without protective collars.
Too bad the Italian distribution of the film was imperceptible and very limited for dvd rental.
Worship.
Review by Zick
