Tamara

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Jenna Dewan stands out in this revenge-against-my-classmates movie>you've seen this kind of movie before but Jenna Dewan deserves repeat viewing.