There is a whole lot of screaming going on in Gregory Hatanaka’s indie film Choke (2020), which is a movie that I thought was as weird as it was innovative. There is a bit of a lolita aspect to its story, which follows a very impressionable young woman who has the misfortune of meeting men who take advantage of her fragile psyche. With her storyline as the focal point, the movie goes on a few tangents exploring the psychological turmoil of its lonely characters.

In Choke, a lonely girl named Jeanie (Sarah Brine) has a chance meeting with an older man on a train. After seemingly finding a confidante in him she begins a sexual relationship with him, though she is unaware of his murderous proclivities. She then meets a therapist who introduces Jeanie to her friend and lover, detective Robert (Scott Butler), and together they explore the world of asphyxiation as a way of enlightenment and pleasure. Having been seduced by the euphoric feelings experienced in the company of these two older men as well as from asphyxiation, Jeanie finds herself overwhelmed and breathless in more ways than one.

At first, Choke seemed like an acting class’ experimental film project, but the storyline became more appealing as it moved into more of a cult aspect — needless to say that a fetish film about autoerotic asphyxiation is pretty edgy, even nowadays. In the first half, Choke dragged at times but found its saving grace in the faces of its female fodder during the montages of the serial murders. The victims’ expressions of shock, terror, and disbelief really made it hit home that their characters were about to die; somehow in other movies, this feeling is lost in the melee of blood and gore that makes one numb to death nowadays, but Hatanaka’s directorial choices in certain shots brought back the terror of a dying victim.

I thought that the monologues for detective Robert, who came off as sort of a morally corrupted “Max Cherry”, lonely-heart type character, were endearing and thought-provoking. This role was played by Scott Butler, who along with the rest of the cast, gave sincere and committed performances. The flow of the movie only seemed to falter during Jeanie’s monologues, whose teenage girl “Dear diary” way of speech hit just as much of a brick wall with me as it seemed to with the characters that she was talking with. The real horror of the movie is her uncomfortable relationship with grown men — she is seventeen, and though the killer doesn’t explicitly say his age he does look to be in his thirties, and the detective looks even older. The film presents these uncomfortable relationships but then does nothing with them in the end, when at the very least Jeanie’s possible father issues or the men’s wrongdoing in engaging with her could have been addressed. Instead, Choke ends very abruptly without any resolution or purpose. But it looked good along the way.

Told in a non-linear narrative full of character monologues and dreamlike sequences, Choke is a unique psychological thriller that explores the mental breakdown of three lonely persons — a naive fatherless teenager, a guilt-ridden cop, and a maniacal serial killer. This movie made me laugh out loud from how naughty it felt at times, I had to turn the volume down during the handful of sexy scenes as well as the choking scenes that sounded just as…passionate. I did turn the volume up at times too though, as Choke‘s musical score was a mix of funky hip hop and pop-sounding tracks. Though at times the musical choices felt off for the movie’s serious narrative, it gave the film an urban feel. To experience this unorthodox and slow-burner of an arthouse thriller look on streaming platforms for VOD or visit Amazon to find Choke on DVD.

MOVIE RATING — 6 out of 10 ☠️