iffb 8 : FIDO w/"Rabbit"

site | trailer | IFFBThe zombie renaissance continues! Imagine PLEASANTVILLE meets NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD! The result, a ton of really stylin' satirical zombie fun! =)

It's 1950s American suburbia, only the most recent great war was not fought against any other nation or ideology, but on the legions of the undead, reanimated by a mysterious form of radiation. Living humanity successfully defends the best of their civilization, resulting in a life very like the LIFE magazine covers we're already familiar with... Mom greets dad at the door with a martini, dad puffs on his pipe while dispensing fatherly wisdom, and little Timmy loves his baseball and apple pie! There's a car in every driveway, a TV in every living room, and... a zombie in every yard. That's right, a domestic zombie. In the battle against the living-challenged, humanity learned to tame the zombies' hunger for living flesh, thanks to Zomcon's revolutionary electronic containment collar, turning the previously useless undead into productive members of society.

In an effort to keep up with their new neighbors, the Robinson family finally breaks down and splurges on a zombie of their own. It takes a little time for the family get comfortable with him, but once his undead companion saves him from some bullies, little Timmy warms up to him, naming him Fido, and basically treating him like a Fido. Other members of the family come to relate to him on different levels, working out issues of their own in their interactions.

It may sound kooky, but it's a little bit LASSIE, a little bit DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS, and a lot of understated comedy delivered in simple groans and undead eye rolls and expressions from Billy Connolly as Fido. I'll spare you any deeper plot bits, because really, all you have to do to understand the comic potential here is imagine the social commentary power of the zombie film dropped into the sham American idyll of the 1950s, shaken and stirred.

Okay, still need more of an overt prod? Hrmm... How about I put it like this? Ward Cleaver, or, ummm... a flesh-eating zombie. Who's the more life-like? Who's more the zombie?

=)

As an IFFB bonus, the animated brilliance of "Rabbit" opened the screening. The imagination, style, writing, animation, and music of this amazing short is just off the charts for me. Pure frickin genius! =)

Keep on keepin on~