You see the box. You check out the actors in it. You sniff the disc. You KNOW it's going to be sh*t, but you can't help yourself... You have to give it a taste...It's just as bad as you feared. You watch the fight sequences, that are beyond parody. You try to follow the story, but fail as you're not high on Class A drugs. The acting... What acting? As for the 'special' effects... They must have been done by 'special' needs people on a ZX Spectrum. No, too advanced. A pocket calculator perhaps? Who on Earth paid for this @:><{?!...Then it hits you. We NEED films like this to put into perspective how hard it is to make a good movie. It makes you cherish even the mediocre flicks, when you stack movies like this up next to it. So rather than feel I've wasted my time on this crap, next time I sit through an underwhelming 90 minute production I can say: It wasn't great but... At least it wasn't B.E.I.N.G. Or Choker. Or Disturbance. Or whatever the heck they're calling it these days.Cosmic logic at its finest.

Don't believe the artwork on the DVD case for writer & director Nick Vallelonga's science fiction chiller "Disturbance" a.k.a. "Choker" about an alien with gnarly fingers gripping an M-16 assault rifle. The $35-thousand dollar budget of this straight-to-video DVD release couldn't accommodate this other worldly nail-biter about aliens invading Earth as a last desperate measure for survival, as was the case in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Essentially, this "X-Files" type actioneer has friendly aliens from a dying planet contacting an ultra-secret government agency about a splinter group of their own—nearly one hundred of them—that have come to Earth to live among us. The friendly aliens help us out by sending one of their own to inhabit the body of executed serial murderer Hud Masters (hard-bodied Paul Sloan of "The Scorpion King") and he makes it his mission to track down the renegade aliens. These renegades thought that they could sustain themselves in a human body, but the diseases that they bring with them break down human bodies. Consequently, to maintain their masquerade, the aliens have to jump from one human body to another like the alien in "The Hidden." Every time that these aliens swap bodies, they drool up a load of green slime and hurl. The aliens struggle to maintain a low profile, so they appropriate the bodies of the scum of the earth, for example, hookers, johns, pimps, drug dealers, addicts, in other words, the dregs of society.Writer & director Nick Vallelonga displays a modicum of flair with this formulaic subject matter. First, he launches the story with an invigorating fight between our crew-cut, muscle-bound serial slayer Masters and a buff looking babe Kat (Kimberly Estrada of "Million Dollar Baby") in the rear of an apartment parking complex. They knock heads until he perforates her with an automatic pistol, and she starts spewing up green slime. Indeed, this run-of-the-mill thriller would have been extremely gory were it not for the green slime. Second, he waits until he has the plot in gear to reveal the hard facts about the unbelievable things that we wind up caught up in throughout the opening hour of "Disturbance." Indeed, enough of these savage killings attract the attention of LAPD's finest. Det. Lt. Murcer (Anthony John Denison of NBC-TV's "Crime Story") and his knuckle-fisted, wise-cracking partner Lt. Clark (Robert R. Schafer of "Psycho Cop") want answers that their own CSI technician Santo (Katrina Law of "Stiletto") cannot provide because she has never seen such phenomenon. Meanwhile, Frank Russo (portly Nick Vallelonga of "The Godfather") receives a call from his field agent-in-charge-of-the-mission, Logan (Colleen Porch of "Demon Hunter"), that he's needed because Hud is experiencing problems. Before Russo can to Logan, Hud chokes Logan to death. By this time, the LAPD has arrested Hud and Clark has done his best to beat the guy to a pulp. Russo shows up and spills the beans in an extended expository dialogue scene about Hud and the aliens. Russo uses his governmental authority to bail out Hud after the LAPD, and they resume their pursue the big cheese alien (Hayley DuMond of "Raptor Island") who now has targeted Russo's wife and child. The ending is pretty typical for a horror movie but at least Vallelonga eschews any kind of a happy ending.Despite its low budget trappings, "Disturbance" has some gritty, get-up-and-go gumption to it, and it only malingers throughout its trim 91 minutes for Russo's expository scene in the police station. Vallelonga trots out several sexy babes for eye candy purposes and stages enough grueling fights so that this thoroughly average thriller has some solidarity to it that lesser efforts lack. Lenser Vladimir Van Maule does a marvelous job on a tight budget and the letterbox formatted cinematography is easy on the eye. During his colorful and insightful commentary, Vallelonga said that he wanted "Disturbance" to look like panes from a comic book and it does resemble a comic book in its palette of colors. The use of green, blue, and red is truly evocative and makes for appealing compositions, better than you'd expect from something like this with its borderline budget. Veteran composer Harry Manfredini of "Friday the 13th" movies rounds off the rough edges with a serviceable score. Although it isn't for anybody but people who love to slum for sci-fi thrillers off the beaten path, "Disturbance" is decent enough that you cannot really complain about time wasted. Sloan is convincing enough as the serial killer largely because he has some interesting memories as a kid growing up with an abusive father.

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.

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.