User reviews

"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.

"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 the first review I allow myself to write here on IMDb. I feel obligated as a human being to warn people against seeing this film. It is based on a formula, that is tired and utterly without any ambition at all. I am, and have been a fan of horror movies since I came to my wits. Tamara is one of those movies that has absolutely NOTHING. It doesn't have a heart, soul, compassion or any of the things that makes a movie worth watching. The characters are as inventive and fruitful as cockroaches. As a matter of fact I think I would enjoy more seeing a documentary about how cockroaches socialize, than I enjoyed even anything any of the characters of Tamara did or said. Not only do the characters have the IQ of cockroaches, but the actors come across being devastated about this chapter in their acting career. For people that like the typical high school, with the typical boring bullies, and the typical boring revenge, this is the film to see. I promise even those who like this kind of mindless formula that they are in for a big disappointment, that will ruin their entire evening.

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,

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.

wow. I've seen plenty of bad horror movies, and this ranks up there with the worst of them. The cast can't act, because they deliver their lines like porno actresses do, badly. And just like porn, the lines are almost an afterthought, but as least in porn there's a payout at the climax. In horror movies, the payout has to be a gory death, and there is at least one in this movie, but one death amongst all the bad dialogue does not a good movie make. The studio WAS going to release this straight to video, but because of internet "BUZZ", they're going to give it a theatrical release in Feburary. Can i start enough of a buzz to send it BACK to video???

I don't really comment on these websites ever, but after logging onto IMDb to see when this movie was coming, I was surprised to see all these negative and mean-spirited reviews and thus felt compelled to write something positive.

First let me say, I'm a horror fan, not an expert by any means, but I like a good horror film as much as the next guy.

Secondly, I actually saw the movie at the NYC Horror Film Festival, where the movie got a standing ovation. Let me repeat that: The movie got a STANDING OVATION. And from what I understand, this was the only time this movie has screened thus far, so I wish someone could please explain to me how and where all these negative reviewers saw it. Everyone in New York seemed to love it. There's no way all these people writing negative stuff could've seen the movie as there were only 300 or so people in the audience and everyone loved it. Remember the standing ovation? I do.

Regardless of what these frauds have written, the movie was good. I'm certainly not claiming it was the greatest or scariest film ever made, but it was certainly a good, fast moving, hide- your-face in your hands movie.

The lead actress was hot, and moved from "put upon" to "tough" very well. In addition to having a great body, she was self-assured and sexy. The other girls were hot as well.

The horror beats were scary and the movie had enough tension and mystery to keep me interested the whole time. There were also some great scares, original kills, and a few great gory moments.

Look for the scene where Tamara emerges from the grave -- I was freaked out.

Compared to a lot of the clichéd, over-the-top-gore out there, Tamara stood out as a good movie. It has a story and some excellent tension. Sexy and scary (and hot high school chicks) in one movie -- my kind of flick.

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.

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.

Teenager Tamara (Jenna Dewan) has it rough. She's ridiculed by all the popular "kids" for being shy, bookish, frumpy and because of her interest in witchcraft. All of the football players and cheerleaders are especially angry at her for writing an article on steroid abuse for the school paper. On top of this, her dad's a drunk, her mom's not around and she's secretly in love with her supportive English teacher (Matthew Marsden). The popular kids set up a cruel prank to humiliate her, accidentally kill her during a struggle, bury the body in the woods and make a pact to keep silent. To their shock, the very next day Tamara walks back into the classroom looking seductive and, uh, dressed to kill. Yep, back from the dead and ready for supernatural revenge against everyone involved. She also takes time out to make her sexually abusive pop eat a beer bottle and tries to seduce her English teacher away from his wife (Claudette Mink), a guidance counselor at the school.

Acting and writing are strictly mediocre. You can also tell the people responsible for this have seen such movies as CARRIE (1976), HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II (1987) and THE CRAFT (1996) because it borrows wholesale from all three of those superior films. There's some gore (a guy cutting off his ear and tongue and then stabbing his eyeball probably being the best bit), a nasty vomiting scene and a few campy/witty one-liners. Not an awful film by any means, but not much originality went into it either.

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.

Tamara is a movie that tries to create suspense but instead creates cheese.This is totally a low budget B movie with not to much going for it other than the gorgeous women.Tamara is particularly sexy and gives a fairly decent performance minus a little bit of bad line delivery but i think the writing team is at fault for that.Yes the writing is pretty bad and almost as bad as the storyline which has a very Blair Witch 2 feel to it.The big difference between Blair Witch 2 and Tamara is Blair Witch 2 had a better storyline, an explanation for the weird paranorma, better acting, realistic performances, and elements of fear whereas Tamara is a more ridiculous, cheesy attempt horror with good looking babes and a few good actors.The actress who played Kisha was beautiful yet a terrible actress who delivered every line like she was doing one of those TV college infomercials so yeah pretty bad.Gore wise i would say the film is half @$$ and a bit of a let down.I was expecting kisha to stick the one guys face in the deep fryer but instead she just tried to stick his head in and got smashed in the face with a stick.What a tease of a horror film!!!!If you put a lot of focus on a deep fryer use it don't taunt us with a potentially gory scene and then screw us over.That would be like leatherface revving up the chainsaw and then someone knocking it out of his hand and for the rest of the film you never see a chainsaw again.This movie was a very original film but sometimes original isn't a good thing as this movie gets lost in it's own fantasy.Overall hot chicks $hit movie.

i didn't know what to expect from this movie, some say its crap and others say it's a great movie. well now that i've seen it i can tell that this is not a bad movie at all. OK, it's like a mix of, i know what you did last summer/carrie/scream with a little dip of witchcraft. but that didn't bother me because the movie was exciting, and kept me interested from beginning to end. it's filled with high school horror clichés and so on but in this movie it all felt right.

the actors ain't class A actors of course but it was acceptable. compared with other horror not bad at all actually. the only thing i didn't really liked about the movie is the balance between tension/ excitement and gore. the movie had his 2 or 3 moments of gore but it could have been more in my opinion. and the actors where the usual goodlookin American high school horror movie persons.

final verdict: just watch it and see for you're self. it ain't the best out there but at least you'll have a good movie to watch. it will keep you on the tip of you're chair for the full one and a half hour. (or at least a good way to spend the one and a half hour. )

As a matter of fact, many people have probably seen this movie, same as me. Why? Because it's already been released on DVD - in Brazil, at least. It's not that good, sorry... although it's not completely awful, as well. It's a decent pastime, if your expectations are not too high. The girl is really pretty and I'd like to see her in some other movies. (This, in fact, is the end of my comment, but since I have to write at least 10 lines for it to be accepted, I hope you don't mind me telling you that I'm kind of a horror fan. I've watched lots and lots of horror flicks, and this one wasn't exactly original. It feels like a TV show episode; think "Buffy", only not half as good; more like "Charmed", maybe.)