Choker (2005)

I watched this old flick because Katrina Law (Spartacus, Arrow) was in it. It is the worst lit movie I have ever (sort of) seen. It is DARK. I don't mean psychologically, I mean they were too cheap, or too broke, to adequately light the scenes of the film. Or maybe they just didn't know what the hell they were doing. You can barely see what the hell is going on in the damn thing. The plot is convoluted to the point of senselessness and the dialog and actions of the characters are often crotch-grabbingly ridiculous. One egregious example is how Katrina, playing a beautiful young medical examiner, while performing autopsies on corpses displaying disturbing symptoms of weird, unknown, possibly communicable disease, doesn't bother to wear a surgical mask.I've watched a lot of bad movies/TV shows because they had good looking chicks in them and this does have that. Too bad its not better lit so you can see them more clearly.

The serial-killer Hud Masters (Paul Sloan) and his partner Logan (Colleen Porch) have been recruited by a governmental agency to hunt down aliens that can survive for a period inhabiting human bodies. Logan reports their murders to her boss Frank Russo (Nick Vallelonga), a family man married with Stacy Russo (Susse Budde) with a daughter, who has a team to remove the bodies and any evidence.When an alien switch bodies to escape from Hud, Lt. Murcer (Anthony John), Lt. Clark (Bobby Ray Shafer) and the coroner Santo (Katrina Law) are forced to return the bodies and Hud, who had been captured by the detectives, to Frank that explains that one hundred aliens from an evolved race had moved to Earth since their planet is doomed. Now Hud has to chase the dangerous Leader (Hayley DuMond), who has adapted to the atmosphere of our planet and wants to breed."Choker" is definitely not a good or an unforgettable sci-fi movie. However, considering the extremely low-budget, it works reasonably well on DVD. The storyline is a rip-off of "The Hidden" and the writer / director Nick Vallelonga is too fat for a skilled agent. One question: if the aliens die in the delivery of their offspring, how could Hud and the Leader be brothers? My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Comando: Exterminador" ("Commando: Extermination")

Choker is set in Los Angeles where Lieutenant Clark (Robert R. Shafer) & Detective Rourke (James Quattrochi) have several dead bodies on their crime solving hands, all the bodies are covered in a strange slime & Los Angeles pathologist Santo (Katrina Law) who isn't anywhere nearly as good as Quincy doesn't have a clue what is going on. Then they get orders from the 'top' & Frank Russo (writer, producer & director Nick Vallelonga) the mysterious boss of a 'Men In Black' style Government agency says that the bodies belonged to people who were taken over by hostile aliens who jump from body to body leaving a long trail of dead people behind them. Frank also claims that a good alien has taken over the body of convicted serial killer & rapist Hud Masters (Paul Sloan) to help track his evil kind down, amazingly Clark & Rourke don't believe a word of it...Also known as B.E.I.N.G. here in the UK (the current DVD cover features a picture of an alien which never appears in the film itself) & retitled to Disturbance for it's US DVD release (the cover of which is even worse than the UK one showing an alien hand not in the film holding some sort of assault rifle again nowhere to be seen in the actual film) this low budget sci-fi horror film was written, produced & directed by Nick Vallelonga who also stars in it. Right, where to begin? First of the best way to describe Choker would be as Men in Black (1997) with it's secret Government agency set up to deal with alien threats meets The Hidden (1987) with it's body jumping aliens & you can also add a dash of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) with it's story about aliens trying to colonize planet Earth by taking over people's bodies. So there you have it in a nutshell really, Choker is just a huge rip-off of several much, much better films on a much, much lower budget. The narrative is very poor, the entire first half of the film is set up as a mystery which I presume was intended to draw the viewer in & keep them guessing but it's fairly clichéd & predictable stuff. There's also a real lack of any story during this period, it's all well & good keeping the audience in the dark but the makers of Chaoker take it to extreme lengths without even giving the main character's names, we don't know their motivations or reasons for things & a few little bits of information here & there would have been nice since by the time all the silly 'seen it all before' explanations come around I didn't really care as the film had already lost me. The first half just seems like random scenes edited together, for me there was just no hook or desire to keep watching. At almost 100 minutes it also goes on for too long & there's a terrible ending (if you were an alien trying to survive why would you go the only persons house who knew who you were & could kill you?) which ends everything on a low key note anyway.Director Vallelonga does a reasonable job for the majority of the film & quite often the look of Choker betrays it's ultra low budget roots. Occasionally it actually looks quite good, there's one or two decent fights although the budget didn't stretch to special effects apart from some glow in the dark slime. Then again there are times when it does look every bit as cheap as it actually is, the ending in particular is very poorly lit. Unfortunately there's no gore to speak of & I can't even remember seeing a single drop of blood either. We never see the aliens (despite what the UK DVD box may indicate), they are merely depicted as stringy glow in the dark elastic. The story isn't great or overly original & the character's of Santo, Rourke & Clark suddenly disappear about halfway through never to be seen or heard from again.According to the IMDb Choker had a budget of about $35,000 which is really, really low. It's no wonder they couldn't afford any special effects. Also according to the IMDb Choker was filmed in less than two weeks, why so long? To give some credit where it's due Choker actually looks quite nice from time to time & better than it's meagre budget might suggest. The acting isn't going to win any awards but I have seen worse I suppose.Choker is a pretty awful sci-fi horror film rip-off of several other much better films, I really don't see what most viewers would get out of a film such as this. Not recommended at all.

Considering what the film makers and cast of "Choker" had to work with as far as budget, time and resources, the film is a triumph of creativity and indie spirit.Script delivers a fine twisty road to a fun, pulpy resolution and the cast dials in excellent performances in some just-this-side-of-stereotypical roles. The triple-threat of Colleen Porch, Paul Sloan and (especially) Hayley DuMond are a joy to watch on screen.Technically, flick suffers from occasionally rushed-feeling or under-lit or under-choreographed sequences, but again, considered these folks had 12 days to shoot the film, they did a wonderful job! Overall the film feels more thriller than horror and is quite enjoyable.