Tamara

I was fortunate to have seen an early screening of TAMARA and was quite impressed with the final result. The film is propelled by the star-making turns of its two leading female characters, Tamara (Jenna Dewan) and Chloe (Katie Stuart). Dewan is a real find, striking a terrific balance between pathos and horror. She makes quite an impact in her first starring role, and the fact that she's also quite stunning certainly does nothing to diminish her screen presence! Stuart's performance as the tragic do-gooder lends real weight and credibility to the film. It's a smart and sincere performance and not just another sassy-talking teen role that too often occupies this genre. The film is engaging throughout and provides some well-placed shock-and-gore to keep its pace humming along. Credit Jeff Reddick's screenplay for that- here's a film clearly written by someone who respects the genre. He never condescends to his audience, and just like in his film, FINAL DESTINATION, includes enough cleverly gruesome moments to ensure that the experience will memorable. While certain performances and scenes could have been tighter, all in all TAMARA makes for a solid entry in the horror genre and mercifully rises above the pack of overly slick (and perhaps overly sick) entries that horror fans have had to contend with as of late.

Tamara is an unattractive, unpopular, abused girl in her high-school years. She has a crush on her teacher, Mr. Bill Natolly, and she likes witchcraft. When his teacher publishes her article about the use of steroids by the high-school athletes in the school newspaper expecting to improve her self-esteem, the matter indeed puts the students against Tamara. Three classroom mates use three other silly students to play a prank with Tamara, but they accidentally kill her. Due to a spell, Tamara returns from death and plots a lethal evil revenge against the group, and tries to take Bill from his beloved wife, since there is a bond between Bill and Tamara due to the witchcraft.

This fairly unoriginal movie is actually quite a treat. Even though its premise has been used in many other films before, Tamara seems to pull it off as something new, something we'll stick around and watch.

The acting is for the most part average. The lead jock was probably the worst, clichéd character you could find. Really, most of the characters all follow the usual hum-drum formula. Jenna Dewan definitely stands out and fills her roll nicely. Though you have to admit, just before she died she was already looking quite sexy. So even though she looked her best after she "dies", she looked better than most girls in the movie moments before her passing away.

Anyways, there are some decent death scenes in this one which was surprising. I wasn't expecting that a couple of these could closely rival something out of "Saw". The gore effects used are pretty standard but work well and there's no unbelievably fake CGI thrown in to ruin it. The death scenes are the attraction of the movie except of course for the "sexy" Tamara.

Something that raised my score a little is that it wasn't just a revenge movie. It did throw in some drama and even romance to the mix. She didn't just come back to torture those who accidentally killed her because of their stupidity. She came back for love as well. Though the situation rarely arises, there is some good chemistry working between Tamara and her teacher (I mean, as actors).

Jenna Dewan, though very attractive, manages to bring out the evil side well in Tamara. She doesn't try to cringe her face to look evil, she just has this smile that whenever you see it, you know she's thinking of something really naughty, whether its good or bad. Especially during her first scene back at class after her death and the conversation she had with her teachers' wife.

It runs out of steam near the end, especially since Tamara goes off-screen for quite some time when they should be climaxing the movie, not slowing it down. As long as you can handle a cliché'd movie, you're going to have a bit of fun with this one. It reminds me a lot of "The Rage: Carrie 2". If you dig that flick, I doubt you'll have a hard time getting into this one.

It's one of the better teen horrors as of late in my opinion.

"Tamara" is a predictable-but-fun little teen horror flick, bolted together out of spare parts from films like "Carrie," "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "The Craft," to name just a few. Our "heroine" (and I use that term loosely), Tamara (Jenna Dewan), is a homely high school nerd who dabbles in witchcraft in her spare time. She's got an unrequited crush on her hunky, sensitive English teacher (Matthew Marsden) and is constantly picked on by the "populars" in her school. After she writes an article for the school paper "outing" the football team as steroid users, they naturally want to get back at her so they set up a particularly cruel prank where they make her think she's going to hook up with Hunky Teacher Guy at a local hotel. Naturally the naive Tamara is less than thrilled to find out that she's been fooled, and while struggling with her tormentors, she hits her head on a coffee table and dies. In true Horror Movie fashion, the Populars decide to simply bury her in the woods, swear to tell no one what happened, and move on.

Imagine their surprise when Tamara simply sashays back into to school the next day as if nothing has happened, seemingly having gone through an Extreme Undead Hottie Makeover in the meantime. The "new" Tamara appears sweet enough at first, but quickly sets out to get revenge on the gang who wronged her, in the most brutal fashion possible. One kid recreates the "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Say No Evil" mantra with a razor knife, her abusive dad eats glass, a b*tchy cheerleader type vomits her guts out, etc., etc. Of course, Tamara's ambitions also extend to true happiness with her teacher, which means she has to get rid of his wife too. Will true love triumph over vengeance from the grave? OK, so "Tamara" is not a great movie by any means, but it is fun to watch. Jenna Dewan looks pretty hot even when she's supposed to be an Ugly Duckling in the first quarter of the film, but after she returns from the grave -- damn! The rest of the young cast perform their roles as obnoxious cannon fodder well enough, and the flick has decent production values and just the right amount of gore and nastiness. If you can get over the inherent silliness of it all, "Tamara" is a fun ride for B-horror fans.

"Tamara" gets an "A" for eye candy, a "C" for originality, and a "B-" for execution. Worth a look if you can find it cheap, like I did.

"Tamara" is about a teenage outcast. She is ridiculed constantly by her classmates, lives with a drunken father, and has a crush on her English teacher. When some fellow peers decide to play a big prank on Tamara at a motel late one night, the poor girl is accidentally killed, her head smashed onto the corner of a table. The group of popular high-schoolers decide to bury the body and never speak of the incident again. But the following day, Tamara is back at school, with a completely new style, a major change from the mousy outcast she used to be. Little did the teens know, Tamara practices witchcraft, and now her soul is hell-bent on taking bloody revenge on those who wronged her.

If you were expecting something original, you probably won't want to look here. The basic premise of the movie is a complete rip-off of "Carrie", and the whole witchcraft, rising from the dead thing reminded me a bit of "Pet Sematary". The story was overused, and the acting wasn't great either. The teens who accidentally kill Tamara speak after the accident as if they didn't just kill someone, and seem a little too comfortable with the fact that they just buried her body out in the woods. The film lacks any shocks or suspense, which is a major negative in a movie of this type, and the script wasn't at the best quality either.

Bottom line is, this movie isn't anything new. It's your basic "return from the dead" teenage revenge movie, basically more recycled supernatural teen stuff. Kind of like "Carrie" mixed with "Pet Sematary", but not even half as good as either of those films. Don't go out of your way to see it, unless you are really, really interested. 5/10.

It's exactly what it advertises: a B-horror revenge slasher with a witch.

The plot is exactly what is says in the four sentence description they provide with no twists or turns and when it ended I just thought "well that was fine"

The beginning was extra slow to get going and it did make me think about turning it off.

They do a pretty nice job with some of the witch stuff. The b-horror feel is there, and the gore effects were pretty good making me squirm a couple times. The revenge half of the movie is pretty well paced.

Unfortunately: The dialog was generic and boring. The acting wasn't great all around. The story was flat and shallow.

This feels like exactly the kind of movie you could see on tv and always know exactly what's happening even if you missed a bit. If you want something on in the background, this would work well, but that's not a bad thing.