Tamara (2005)

Director:

Jeremy Haft

Writer (WGA):

Jeffrey Reddick (written by)

Release Date:

3 February 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Fantasy | Thriller

Tagline:

Karma's a bitch.

Plot:

Tamara, an unattractive girl, who is picked on by her peers returns after her death as a sexy seductress to exact revenge.

Plot Keywords:

Witchcraft | Revenge | High School | Spell | Prank

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jenna Dewan	...	Tamara Riley
Katie Stuart	...	Chloe
Chad Faust	...	Jesse
Bryan Clark	...	Shawn
Melissa Elias	...	Kisha
Gil Hacohen	...	Patrick
Marc Devigne	...	Roger
Matthew Marsden	...	Bill Natolly
Claudette Mink	...	Alison Natolly
Chris Sigurdson	...	Mr. Riley
Sarah Blondin	...	Freshman Girl #1
Magally Zelaya	...	Freshman Girl #2
Ernesto Griffith	...	Cop #1
Brian Davisson	...	Security Guard
Brandy Jaques	...	Receptionist

MPAA:

Rated R for sequences of strong bloody violence, language, sexuality and teen drinking.

Runtime:

98 min | Philippines:95 min (cut)

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:16 | USA:R | Germany:16 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Canada:18A (Manitoba) | Philippines:R-13 | Australia:MA | Italy:VM14

Filming Locations:

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Company:

Integrated Films & Management

Trivia:

Patrick's insult to Tamara early in the film, "trailer-trash whore", was ad-libbed by the actor. This was not in the script since writer Jeffrey Reddick himself grew up in a trailer.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the scene where Tamara is tearing the love binding spell from her spell book, the page comes out clean with no jagged tears. The jagged tear where Chloe will later replace the spell into the book can be seen behind the page being torn.

Quotes:

Patrick: Sorry, Mrs. Natolly. Tamara wants you dead.

Movie Connections:

References I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Soundtrack:

Sonico

It's one of the better teen horror movies 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.