Tamara (2005)

A Major Disappointment

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Here is my review for the Horror/Thriller movie Tamara that will contains several spoilers throughout!Tamara stars Jenna Dewan as a shy and insecure girl Tamara who is currently going through high school and likes to practice witch craft in her spare time. She is struggling to fit in socially with her classmates of which a group of them continuously taunt and bully her apart from one of the girls. She also has a crush on her tutor Matthew who is pleasant towards her and sees that she has potential with her work at school. Even though he is married to another teacher Alison at the school that does not stop Tamara's attraction towards him.One day a bully of Tamara's arranges a party and invites Tamara over pretending to be her tutor, the party soon turns out to uncover as a prank which is a violating one at Tamara's expense. She is angry and attacks a couple of members of the group and ends up hitting her head on a table and being accidentally killed. The group ponder as to what they will do next and decide top bury her body and not discuss again about the events that just happened.In the class room some time after Tamara has died her reappears supposedly alive and well and to the amazement of her fellow bullies sits besides them like a new woman and more glamorous than she has ever looked before. Tamara has plans to persuade her tutor to fall in love with her and also to have justice for her accidental death and whether she will do this remains to been seen!Tamara did have some clever and creative plot twists for me and i do like how the film was not just a straight forward Horror film or Thriller as not everything that happens will be expected to the average viewer. I found the way in which Tamara dealt with her victims intriguing as she was intelligent with her decision making and did not have to necessarily extract any violence or death on her victims herself, she also had a new found confidence after her character came back to life and was able to turn the tables on her victims and make them see themselves for who they truly were and also play on their own insecurities.I would rate this film 6 out of 10.

While the plot and action in this movie weren't uniquely fresh (shy teen girl with a weird crappy home life gets bullied at school) I appreciate that this movie isn't as formulaic as most teen horror. I tend to fast forward through most movies these days as I know what's coming next both in the action and dialogue. I didn't FF through any of this movie. We know that Tamara has come back to get revenge but she does it in unexpected ways.There was just enough gore to fit the genre but not so much that it became the kind of kitsch that makes me ponder how many buckets of fake blood went to waste. The acting is well done and some of the dialogue surprised me with its wit. "Its wet," says Tamara as she's seducing her teacher who reacts with plausible discomfort. You'll have to watch it yourself to see what she really meant.I truly love the scene were Mrs. Natolly (the teacher's wife) gets attacked because it is NOT a scene where a helpless female does stupid things that result in her quick and gory death. Mrs. Natolly uses her brain.Although it was predicable who would survive until the end, the final way that Tamara is dealt with wasn't obvious or clichéd.This movie doesn't resort to overdoing the fake blood or gratuitous sex but it still has sexy moments and enough creepiness and suspense to make it real horror; plus, the engaging plot and solid acting made extra gore unnecessary. A film worth watching on a rainy weekend afternoon. Maybe they should make more horror in Manitoba.

Even 4 stars is being generous... A hokey but original premise full of potential that starts great but slowly boils down to a half baked, clichéd mess.The films primary downfall is the horrendously skewed sense or morality. The movie begins with a disturbingly real story of an alienated girl who is bullied at school only to go home to her alcoholic, sexually abusing father. On top of this, she's infatuated with her English teacher a good 10 years her senior who is also married to another member of the faculty.Even after discovering her interest in the black arts we still feel for her. Now the movie could have just focused around this part and could have passed as a solid coming of age high school drama but anyone watching the movie knows whats coming and after seeing the abuse she takes...we want her to get some sweet satisfying revenge.Tamara's revenge is weak and poorly executed and the movie starts to focus on the teens that did her wrong. Now we as an audience are confused about who we are voting for. DO we cheer for the pompous high school jocks who killed an innocent young girl? Or do we cheer for the vengeful demon seductress whose first victim was the nerdy AV kid who actually didn't take much part in her death? Well we WANT to cheer for Tamara but the movie forces is in the other direction unfortunately Even this becomes the least of your worries as the movie slowly melts into oblivion in the final chapter with a lame conclusion and a "shocker" ending that makes no sense whatsoever. Even Tamara's character gets less and less screen time towards the end.Even with the lame execution, the movie was somewhat entertaining and the first half is enough to give it a bit of a credit...but even so...it isn't recommended.

The first half of Tamara really drew me in. Although extremely derivative, it looked like maybe it could do some really interesting things. Unfortunately by the last third, it has turned into a series of chases that are heartbreaking in their unoriginality. I really thought this one would be special.It begins with a group of high schoolers picking on a nerdy classmate, who then dies during a humiliating prank. They agree to cover up her death, binding them together by a vow of silence. Right away, we know that everyone in this group is going to have something terrible happen to them, most likely one at a time so that the movie can fill its running time with several different devices of death and/or dismemberment. What we didn't expect was for Tamara to show up at school the next day with a glossy new look and a renewed sense of determination for seducing her English teacher.I don't care enough to list the positives and the negatives. There were things that I liked, and I did stay interested to the end, except during some of the generic chase scenes that could have come out of any number of horror/thrillers. I would have really liked more character development instead of the time they wasted having characters run around the hospital (which looked deserted despite the fact that patients WERE being treated there). The bottom line is, I felt like a lot more could have been done with this idea. Maybe the filmmakers even had more planned for us, but decided to save it for the sequel. They might never get to make it, but they made sure, in the final moment of this film, they would really like to do one.