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.
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.