Tamara

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.

I went into this film not expecting much and I got a lot less. I get the whole hot girl thing and the basic plot but this film was just over the top formulaic and typical. Nothing originally about this film and that is why I didn't enjoy it. I wanted to like it, knowing it would be brainless, but the more it played the more disappointed I became and the more I realize I like horror films that have a unique story. Sadly this did not. Everything about it was typical, as if someone just took bits and pieces of other generic horror films and threw it in here with no regard to respect for the viewer.

I can't recommend this film because of the sophomoric way it was told.

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 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.

Tamara is pretty much a Carrie rip-off, even the poster art is almost identical. Whether it was intended to be original or not, I'm not sure, but with a few less clichés and a bit more character development, this could have been a film like May, smart and scary, and eccentric. Perhaps this film is a 'takes one to know one' kind of story. socially troubled girls, may find this emotional but everyone else will see Tamara as what it is, a sexy, but shallow horror movie.

Tamara Riley becomes the most hated girl in school after she writes a news paper article which rats out a number of her school mates in a certain way. One night, a bunch of them play a nasty prank on her, but things go wrong and she is accidentally killed. In the panic, they bury her body in the woods, but somehow she comes back from the dead, more cunning and sexy than before, and with a mind for revenge.

The trick to enjoying the movie is whether or not you feel engaged enough to root for the protagonist. She was done a major injustice but she is also doing injustice to others. The sex appeal of Tamara is really secondary. Tamara is nothing more or less than amusing in a twisted way, but if you want a similar movie that actually gets you thinking, watch May.