Tamara

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.

"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.

This is my first time posting, but I recently saw Tamara and after reading some of the hatin' on this board, I thought I'd add my opinion.

People have already covered the story, so I'll just talk about the film . While it's not the best movie I've seen, it was a definitely a great way to spend 90 minutes. It had a sexy lead, some great kills and a wicked sense of humor. I'm definitely going to see it again.

The good...

I thought the story was well written and well paced. As a horror fan, I hate when people say something's not horror, but a psychological thriller...butthat's what this film was. Sure, we know Tamara's gonna get revenge on her tormentors. But instead of just killing them off with an axe or a knife, her revenge is more psychological. She toys with the other kids and gets back at them in ways I've never seen. I thought it was clever that she didn't just go around slaughtering them.

Jenna Dewan, the actress who plays Tamara, does a great job. You feel sorry for her in the beginning and when she comes back...she's amazing. She's not just evil. She's sexy and fun...if it wasn't for the whole "back from the dead" thing, she'd be the perfect hottie. If Jenna isn't a star in the next few years, I'll eat my...well, I'll eat something I don't like. She does a great job.

I thought the directing was good too. I'm so tired of seeing MTV-style movies that are cut so fast and shot so dark that you can't see what was going on. The film obviously had a low budget, but they made the best of it.

The bad...

The film's not perfect. People expecting a lot of blood and gore, will be disappointed. But the stuff that's there really works...the Roger scene is classic. Also, I'm not a perv, but since the story was so sexy, I would have liked to seen more skin. There's some scenes...both with the gore and the sex...where they could have gone a lot further.

Some of the acting. Overall, I thought the acting was really good, but there were a pair of actors I didn't like. (I won't name names, because I don't get off on being nasty.)

Overall, this was obviously a low budget movie, but I think it delivered the goods. It's much better than a lot of the big budget stuff I've seen (The Fog...) And for the dude who thought it should go direct to DVD....check out all of Lions Gate's direct to DVD crap. This movie kicks the sh*t out of them. Actually, aside from Saw and High Tension, I think this is the best genre film they've put out.

Peace,

"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.

Don't you just hate it when this happens? Now that you finally found yourself a gorgeous looking high school sweetheart, she turns out to be a murderous witch, capable of making you eat glass beer bottles with the touch of her hand! Damn! But Tamara has some very good reasons to be this cranky. The popular crowd at school tricked her into believing that the handsome and beloved English teacher has finally fallen for her, too, and set up a whole fake meeting in a sleazy hotel room. That's a pretty good reason to get rancorous already but, on top of that, they also accidentally killed her, buried her body in the woods and made a pact to keep it a secret. Thanks to several puberty years of casting spells, Tamara rises from the dead like a gorgeous babe with exclusively vengeance on her mind. First and foremost, I think it's hilarious how these movies portray the so-called "unattractive" girl. Tamara was never ugly to begin with, so simply combing her hair and wearing a push-up bra already turns her into a teenage sex bomb! "Tamara" isn't a very good horror film, mainly because it lacks originality and surprises. A big list of horror movies, which featured similar plots before, promptly comes to mind: There's "Carrie" (of course), but also "The Craft", "I know What You Did Last Summer" and even a bit of "I Spit On Your Grave". There's few to no tension in the script, although I do have to admit that the film actually was a lot gorier than I expected it to be. The playful deaths Tamara has in mind for her enemies are quite ingenious and close to being pure splatter. One poor sucker, for example, commits suicide live on school-TV whereas a girl pukes up gallons of blood. The acting performances are far above average, especially the females are good, and Jenna Dewan is definitely a promising talent to keep an eye on. Overall, this surely isn't a memorable new horror movie, but it never bores you and it's at least as good (if not better) than most big-budgeted Hollywood productions that receive theater-releases.