By RaeAnne Marsh Andrew Currie brings Fido to Sundance with a distribution deal already in play. "Lions Gate came on board as soon as they read the script," he says, excited because "Lions Gate has such a great history of finding the right way to market unique films." Fido is a horror movie with no gore, and its lead character voices no lines. The indie surprises on many levels - one being its impressive cast: Carrie-Anne Moss (the Matrix movies), Billy Connolly (The Last Samurai), Henry Czerny (Conversations with God), Dylan Baker (Spider-Man 2) and Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?). The script, Currie feels, is what brought them in, and he shares Nelson's response to reading it: "Is this an artistic film that could be cult, or are you gonna go for splatter?" Set in an idyllic "50s" where legions of domesticated zombies serve the living, Fido focuses on a suburban family and the relationship between a boy and his dog...er, his zombie. Currie contrasts timeless elements - crane shots, a sweeping orchestral score - with the (comical) violence of zombies. Currie's early award-winning "Mile Zero" was, he feels, a film that fell short in that it generated "not even a smile" - an audience response that can hardly be said of Fido. "We worked really hard on the script. We used Anagram's story room, breaking down the script and the character arcs and making sure the story is going somewhere and has that depth - and the humor Fido needed." "I'd seen his stand-up," Currie says of casting Connolly for the role of Fido, a mute undead. "But when I saw him in Mrs. Brown...so expressive with his eyes, I knew he had the depth and warmth to humanize this zombie." Currie relates Connolly's care-free attitude: "He flies in [from Scotland], goes straight to the set where we chop his hair short, shave his beard... The next day, he has to get up at 3 a.m. because he needed full-body make-up... and then we put him in a cold basement and hose him off with freezing cold water. And he never complained." Currie has had Sundance experience (sending an early effort, "Groomed," ten years ago) but Fido is Currie's first significant effort to expand beyond Canada. "Sundance is a real filmmaker's festival. When you can actually sit down with other filmmakers and talk about film and be passionate about film - it's always the best experience." | 
