Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Uneven but occasionally promising, April 22, 2006
Tamara is an occasionally diverting horror film. The title character (well played by dancer Jenna Dewan) is a shy, nerdy high school student who manages to get on the bad side of the jocks at her school. Natrually, this leads to the jocks pulling a rather cruel prank on Tarma and, of course, this leads to Tamara accidentally getting killed and buried out in the woods. However, like all shy, nerdy girls in these types of films, Tamara was into black magic and, the next day, everyone is quite surprised to see Tamara boldly back from the dead, strutting through the school hallways in a high heels and a red bustier. Not only has returning from the dead given Tamara a new look but it's also left her with a thirst for revenge and the supernatural powers necessary to get it.
The film's plot will be obvious to anyone who has ever seen a horror film and neither director Jeremy Haft or writer Jeffrey Reddick offer up any new twists on a familiar story. However, the film does occasionally feature some memorable moments. Though most of the actors sleepwalk through their roles, three actresses do offer up performances that transcend the limitations of their parts. As Tamara's best friend, Katie Stuart is immensely likeable and believable as a well-meaning teenager who has suddenly found herself in over her head. Claudette Mink, who plays the unfortunate wife of a teacher that Tamara has a crush on, is good in a relatively thankless role and she brings a real sense of fear to the scenes where she's menaced by Tamara's magic. She makes those scenes real and, for a few minutes at least, helps the picture rise above the limitations of its plot. As the title character, Jenna Dewan gives a strong and credible performance. Her strongest moments are in the beginning of the film when she makes Tamara's loneliness very real and poignant. Her terror and shame when she discovers that she's been the victim of a cruel prank is never less than believable and it helps to make an awkward scene very credible. Once she returns from the dead as evil Tamara, she is betrayed by a script that requires her to be almost too campy to be truly threatening but Dewan still manages to believably convey the anger and the need for revenge that lies underneath the surface of someone whose spent their entire life being picked on.
The direction from Jeremy Haft is rather pedestrian for most of the film until the final fifteen minutes or so. At this point, the survivors of Tamara's revenge find themselves under seige in a small hospital and it is here that the film actually comes alive. Haft creates a good deal of tension in these scenes and actually makes the fate of some of Tamara's victims rather tragic. The closing sequence of this film is almost good enough to excuse the rather lame moments that preceded it and it is in these final scenes that Tamara is the most compelling.
In the end, Tamara is a wildly uneven film and probably one that won't be enjoyed by people who aren't fans of horror films. However, Tamara has just enough promising moments to make it worth taking a chance on.
|
|
|
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jenna Dewan's dual role as Tamara is reason enough to watch, August 6, 2006
Tamara was a good entertaining horror/teenage angst movie in the same vein as De Palma's Carrie and pretty much most of the teenage revenge/slasher flicks of the late 70's and early 80's. Such horror films involved the high school jocks and popular cliques getting their comeuppance by way of the nerdy student who has had enough. This time around the nerd in question is one Tamara whose shy, bookish and frumpy nature makes her an easy mark for every other kid in school.
Newcomer and extremely hot Jenna Dewan plays the title role and she does a very good job pulling off the dual personality role Tamara goes through the film. The first half of the film Dewan was very believable as the mousy and nerdy student whose low self-esteem adds to keeping her ostracized from the rest of the student population. It doesn't help that she begins to misread one of her teacher's (played by Matthew Marsden) attempts to help her as some sort of seduction she so craves. There is a small bit of a bright side to her daily existence in the form Chloe (played by Katie Stuart), she of the popular girl with a heart-of-gold role. Tamara's life soon turns for the worst as her attempts to show her love for her helpful teacher is rebuffed and her published article about drug-use in athletics puts her in the crosshairs of a couple of jocks with much to lose.
Typical of such teenage revenge horror movies, the cruel jocks and popular kids concoct a plan to humiliate and embarrass Tamara, but just like those past films their plans backfire and the target of their pans gets killed during the the prank. The filmmaker really don't add something new to this tried and tested formula. Instead of calling for the authorities to report the accidental death of their schoolmate, the kids decide, through the bullying of the alpha-male in the group, to bury Tamra instead and forget anything ever happened. This plan probably would've worked if Tamara wasn't dabbling in witchcraft as ostracized teenagers are wont to do. Tamara's spell prior to the prank to spellbound her teacher backfires as its activated by the spilling of her blood and to the surprise of the students who did her harm she returns alive, healthy and completely different the start of the new school week.
To say that Tamara returns utterly different in more ways than one is an understatement. Ms. Dewan does a vampy, sometimes campy, job portraying the new and improved Tamara. Dewan goes from nerdy, plain-jane Tamara to ultra-sexy, barely there skirt wearing teen seductress whose touch does more than seduce those she has targeted for revenge. Jenna Dewan as the reborn Tamara steams up the screen with her overt sexuality and he practically saves the film from just being an ok, by-the-numbers horror movie. Tamara is Ms. Dewan's film from beginning to end and she does a very good job of keeping the story interesting even if it meant just being on the screen.
This film doesn't break new ground in the realm of teen horror. In fact, it's a mish-mash of alot of past teen horror flicks of the past that one could see the many influences in its story. Tamara is part Carrie, Black Christmas, The Craft and a slew of other teenage horror movies. The direction is adequate at best and that's really all one could hope for in a genre film like Tamara. What makes this film entertaining and worth watching is the joy of discovering the new talent in Jenna Dewan. Tamara might not be a great horror film, but Ms. Dewan sure more than tries to make it more than it's B-movie pedigree.
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, fun and Jenna Dewan is 'wicked'!, June 15, 2007
I actually came across this movie on cable a couple of nights ago,and watched it more out of boredom than anything else,only to be surprisingly entertained. The story revolves around a teenager [played well by newcomer Jenna Dewan] who is a misfit at school, her only motivation being a well-meaning teacher [played by Matthew Marsden], and a kind friend in the form of Chloe [Katie Stuart]. Tamara gets into the bad books of some of the popular kids in school when her expose on doping in athletics is published in the school paper...this sets the scene for a cruel prank that goes horribly awry when Tamara ends up dead and is buried in the woods. The twist here is that Tamara was also a novice witch who dabbled in the black arts, and she returns from the grave as a sexy, malicious vixen hell-bent on exacting her revenge on all who cross her, including some innocents, such as her English teacher upon whom she has a crush, his wife and even Chloe. Though the plot is really nothing new, and has been done in different variations, Jenna Dewan's Tamara is sufficiently convincing and compelling to watch, and the methods she uses to get back at her enemies, though not highly original, nevertheless make for entertaining viewing. "Tamara" is not a great horror movie, but it is actually a pretty decent B movie that bears at least one viewing.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
DVD ~ Donald Sutherland
DVD ~ Shawn Ashmore
DVD ~ Shauna Macdonald
DVD ~ Michelle Trachtenberg
DVD ~ Belén Rueda
