ChokingHazard

Choking Hazard (2004)

A varied group of “truth seekers” is spending the weekend at an isolated hotel during the off-season so a blind philosopher can lecture them. At least that is what I think is going on because they are never really clear of that. Their weekend of self-realization and spiritual growth is interrupted when zombies suddenly spill from the woods around them. Of course the zombies have one thing on their minds and that is to seek out the flesh of the living, which is what they do. Now instead of worrying about finding themselves they have to worry about surviving the night.

So when I heard that there was out in the world a Czech made zombie comedy called Choking Hazard I knew that I had to check it out. I mean I love zombies (the site is called Gutmunchers for crying out loud!) and I enjoy oddball movies from other countries. So yes I was looking forward to checking out Choking Hazard. I have to say that I was really disappointed. First of all I found the movie to be very slow in spots and never really that funny. Hell after an interesting opening it takes 30 minuets for the zombies to show up. Also all of the attempts at humor just fell flat for me, though that might be a cultural thing. Maybe the idea of woodsmen zombies is freaking hilarious if you are from Czechoslovakia, but I just didn’t get it. Other than the porn star Jehovah’s witness the only character that was at all interesting to me has no lines and shows up only at the beginning and very end of the movie. Other than that I found the characters to be of the throwaway variety and only serve as zombie chow. Oh and there is a bit towards the end where the movie inexplicably winds back in time after killing off all the characters. This was a really lame plot device that killed some of the fun that I was managing to have with the otherwise uninteresting movie.

The special effects are a mixed bag. There are some nice looking practical makeup jobs on the individual zombies, but most of the kills are of the CGI variety. That is of course when the kills are on screen at all. I did find it interesting that a low budget zombie movie made overseas in Europe shows many of the same defects that tend to plague the low budget efforts from here in the States. I mean it isn’t a good thing, but interesting nonetheless.

In the end this is one of those movies that just tries too hard to be cool. The random karate zombies and a dance party with the undead being electrocuted just doesn’t work for me at all. Looking at my notes I think that I have a line here that sums up this movie perfectly. “Wow this thing isn’t funny, it is just retarded.” Yeah that about sums it up. While it has a few moments there is no way I can recommend anyone wasting their time on it.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer