Eyes of the Chameleon (2007) Will Make You Squirm
Eyes of the Chameleon, a recent DVD release from Troma, opens with a sadistic rant—an uncle screaming hateful obscenities at his nephew who is being held in a dungeon of sorts. It’s a flashback. It then fast forwards to a girl who shouldn’t be caught on film (she’s cute enough, but line-reading is not her strong point) revealing her breasts to a black-leather-gloved stranger she picked up. The stranger makes short work of her. Despite her untimely demise, we soon learn that she is one of the more talented thespians in the film.
Things take a downturn when a “gypsy” fortune teller puts a curse on one of her clients—a client who goes home, smokes pot, snorts coke, and--wait…is that a full moon?--her boyfriend shows up. Why is it that independent filmmakers on shoestring budgets always have a character who walks in and says “hey, baby”? It’s not just that they always include the line, but that it’s delivered like the actor is uncomfortable with it. Maybe independent films on shoestring budgets need to have more method actors in their casts.
Eyes of the Chameleon was shot entirely on location in Las Vegas, and some of the scenes look as though the camera was sneaked in when no one was looking. The central character, the bartender under a curse, admits she hasn’t felt like herself lately. We all know what that means. It means she doesn't want to tend bar anymore; she wants to go to school and have a respectable life.
There’s lots of sex, but it’s not very sexy—more depressing than anything else; it combines with poorly orchestrated violence, and an awful script that attempts to torture the audience into submission. Piercings, tattoos, drug use…it’s all pretty dreary. Shades of the occult do nothing to raise Eyes of the Chameleon to respectable horror. But wait! It does have about two and half minutes of humor at a funeral service offered by an “Irish” priest. It’s not hilarious, but it’s a relief from the rest of the film.
We don’t expect Mel Gibson’s Hamlet or even Peewee’s Big Adventure (which is actually a great film) from Troma, but Eyes of the Chameleon is not just scraping the bottom of the barrel; it’s moving the barrel, digging a hole under it, and scraping that. Eyes of the Chameleon stops being entertaining after Lloyd Kaufman and Debbie Rochon's campy introduction to the film, long before the opening credits.
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