Choking Hazard - 2004

I can only assume that the Czech Republic is doing relatively well since the fall of Communism in 1989—in fact, I believe it’s a proven truth, that the sign of a country on the political mends is whether or not it makes a gory zombie movie. It’s also nice to see that the Czech’s have a good sense of humor. Choking Hazard goes a long way in proving that.

Choking Hazard is a bizarre tale weaving the odd, but if you think about it, quite obvious, threads of zombies and philosophy. It opens with a woman in black, who blows a zombie’s head off with a shotgun. This seems a bit disjointed as we don’t see her again until the end, but if you’re living in the Czech Republic, you get the joke. The woman is Dagmar Patrasova, popular children’s television show host. The story swirls around a group of people who head into the woods to the Halali Motel to try to figure out the meaning of life, which is rather ironic. The group consists of a young nihilist named Verner, a girl with an apparent obsessive-compulsive disorder named Hanusova, an alcoholic named Krenocova who believes that one can find the meaning of life in an orgasm, and a hardcore porn start named Mechura who also happens to be a Jehovah’s Witness. A blind philosophy professor named Dr. Renis (played by Czech comedy star, Jaroslav Dusek) heads the group with his constant droning on about this and that philosopher. There is a particularly amusing bit about how a philosopher should die—Renis doesn’t seem to die quite as a philosopher should. Rounding out the group are the organizers, Lefnerova, and her whipped husband, Nedobyl.

During the first evening of their weekend retreat, for reasons not entirely clear, numerous zombie woodsman (called Woombies). According to director Marek Dobes, the traditional Czech forest ranger, or woodsman, “hunt the weak members of the herd in our forests because they try to limit the number of ill and crippled beasts to help with the balance of nature, which can’t work on its own, because the ecological factors are so limited in the surviving European forests.” While no other explanation seems to exist as to why these woodsmen would rise on this particular night and attack the people in this particular motel—this is as good a reason as any. All of the attendees of the retreat are searching for something that they could probably do just fine in life not knowing if they just lived their lives, which might be seen as a kind of weakness.

According to Renis, there are two things that control our actions in our lives, those being Instinct and Reason. And these two things do indeed materialize in the form of the zombie woodsmen, which come in those two flavors: the dumb and clumsy Instinct and the smart and dangerous Reason. While our cast of characters is whittled away (and by the way, how does one properly capture what it’s like to be blind and eaten by zombies? Watch this film to find out), we the audience can toy with the philosophical query of which is most important, Instinct or Reason. In the end, in a silly scene where a Reason zombie gets covered in blood and is attacked by a dimwitted Instinct zombie, you can reach your own conclusion.

What is most enjoyable about Choking Hazard is the obvious thought and consideration put into it that gives it a bit more substance that your average gore-fest, but at the same time, the lack of seriousness that accompanies it allows it to be critical of that very substance. It’s a movie that allows you to feel sort of clever to play with the ideological underpinnings, yet also allows you to laugh it off and have fun with it. Combine that with some slick shooting and some good acting and you’ve got yourself a winner.

Directed by: Marek Dobes
Written by: Marek Dobes and Stepen Kopriva