Choker (2005)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Brilliant and touching

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Choker, apparently renamed as Disturbance at some point for reasons undisclosed, found its way to my collection as a result of the untimely closure of a video store. It sat in my collection, unwatched, for several years.In a word, it is delightfully awful. The 8 rating is because we enjoy horrible movies and were devastated when MST 3000 ended its run. Choker/Disturbance would have been a classic MST3K excursion. Alas, it fell to my friend and me to play the part of Crow and Tom Servo asking all of the smart-ass questions and maintaining an inane running commentary ourselves. Though amateurs, it was extremely entertaining.From the monochrome film noir scenes,replete with Hitchcock-esque silhouettes, the cop with a fedora ripped out of 1947, to the hookers without meth mouth, it was a stirring jaunt through the land of cinematic art gone terribly wrong. Unfortunately, the story was fairly coherent and there were no major continuity errors.So if you too mourn the loss of MST3K, go ahead and get a copy or put it in your queue. Gather 'round the flat screen and have some fun with it just like in the old days.

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")

This comment MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS – hmm, but not much to spoil, on the other hand.Now, I got my hands at B.E.I.N.G. (UK DVD title) when I bought a set of 80s Sci-Fi flicks … dunno if there are better movies in the box set, but hey, this movie surely lowered the expectations for the rest. After reading the other comments and the trivia here on the IMDb, I won't bash the movie for looking cheap or doing things rather rushed – looks like they had neither money nor time. Then again, one can criticize this: (A) Lack of storytelling. The background story – being thin enough – is only explained for a certain degree, and everything happens quite fast. This must not be a flaw for a movie, but it doesn't improve this one. And than they do things like this: Missi Logan, the right hand of the main character is killed somewhat in the middle of the flick. Now, she did not have much to say earlier, but then, after you have all but forgotten about her miserable role they give you a ten minute flashback about "why she was the best there was, how the nebulous agency did hire her, etc.". This I found somewhat out of place, because like I said, she did not have any character while she still ran after Sloan's character – so why bother? (B) Most actors are no good. Sorry, but only Paul Sloan, who I found good enough as somewhat clueless, driven killer and Hayley DuMond – who did a okay job as a cold, but nevertheless hot evil lady, did really act. The rest just kinda stumbled along. The cops where so stereotypical that it hurt, Nick Vallelonga did not much with a one-dimensional character and the girls, the girls. More or less all of the gals in this movie look like they started their career in porn movies – and "act" like that. Okay, they look hot, too – but their wooden acting skills make every wainscot go green with envy. (C) Plot devices. They just do more or less all the bad things to do. Have some fights with wild gals in leather. Kill a kid. Let the bad cop beat the crap out of the main character. Have a martial arts fight with absolutely no style or anything else but, "oi, I know a real karate guy, why not invite him and let him do some tricks, so there are another five minutes wasted and the audience might actually think it's cool". Sorry, it's not. And then they do the usual "Bad Ending". In the older days all people did good endings. Then some did bad endings which added a nice dreadful touch to a movie. Now every blasted C-grade Horror does a bad ending and like with the good endings back then, you know it's coming, and hey here it comes, and hey, did it not add to anything but the terror – maybe they will do a sequel! All in all, I thought this movie lacks too much of a movie to be called entertaining, but then again, maybe they tried hard. This not always means you are not going to fall flat on your face. B.E.I.N.G. falls not completely flat, but more or less so. Only for Sci-Fi hardcore fans or people who like flicks that look like you could do it yourself.

Choker is an interesting creature, much like the surprisingly sympathetic characters that are presented to us in the film itself.Seeing the film projected in vivid HD on a big screen probably helped the illusion of being dunked into this "sci-fi/noir" world and being told that the film was conceived and developed over a six week period prior to a twelve day shoot definitely got a raised eyebrow from me.The cast elevated this thing immensely. Even the director, who was at this screening, said that without his cast, the material could easily have been reduced to the mediocre. I must remark on this. Based on what I saw and knew of the film, I would have scored this film smack in the middle of a 1-10 scale. Having said that, and given the singular performance of actress Hayley DuMond (playing the lead villain), I must score this film at least one or two points higher - her performance does not deserve to be in a film ranked as a "5" and it elevates the film without question.Solid performances from all, including leads Paul Sloan and Colleen Porch aside, I felt quite disappointed, not because I wasn't engaged...the story demands you keep paying attention - but because with minuscule budgets and no time, a project's true potential can be undermined. Some sequences were gorgeous, well acted and moving - others were muddy and looked rushed or dragged out. To be expected yes, but still a mark against.I expected more horror, but got more of a thriller. Expected more gore; got more creepiness and social commentary. Kind of a cool surprise - I left with the feeling that I had still gotten a little bit of entertainment from a film that seemed to have been made on sheer determination on the part of a gung-ho cast and crew.The film itself is not what I would technically ever call a great film, but the energy behind it seemed to want so badly to contradict that.