Characters / Tamara

Tamara Riley

Portrayed by: Jenna Dewan

• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite all the horrible things she does over the course of the film, it's hard to not feel a little sympathy for Tamara. She was a broken girl who only turned to dark magic because she was so desperate to have someone love her after spending years being bullied and unloved, only to end up being corrupted by the magic that she had hoped would bind her to the one person she loved.
• Ambiguously Brown: She has a white father, but has dark brown hair and olive skin, while her mother is never shown. ^note  Her actress Jenna Dewan is of partial Arab descent.
• Back from the Dead: Tamara returns from the dead following a Deadly Prank because of a magic spell Gone Horribly Right.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Tamara is unable to brainwash Chloe because of this and has a My God, What Have I Done? moment.
  • This is also why she develops a crush on her teacher Mr. Natolly, as he is the only character in the film aside from Chloe who is nice to her.
• Big-Breast Pride: After coming back to life, Tamara starts wearing outfits that show off her impressive bust size.
• Black Bra and Panties: Believing that she is meeting Bill at the motel for sex, Tamara is shown wearing nothing but a black bra and panties when she strips down at the motel room.
• Broken Bird: Her mother left her sometime ago, leaving her to be raised by her perverted, alcoholic father. Her high school life is even worse, as she is tormented by her classmates.
• Came Back Wrong: After coming back from the dead, Tamara becomes a confident, vindictive, and merciless young woman determined to get revenge on those who wronged her, a stark contrast with her meek, kind previous self.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: To Bill. At first, she simply had an innocent schoolgirl crush on him that she was too shy to even act on, which leads her to back out of the love binding spell she intended for him. Once she comes back from the dead thanks to the spell, complete with a gorgeous makeover, she leans more into this trope, as she becomes annoyed when he doesn't give in to her new look or seductive tactics
• Compelling Voice: After her resurrection, Tamara simply has to place her hand on someone's cheek, and afterward they'll do anything she says, even committing murder.
• Death by Falling Over: Tamara dies when she gets thrown to the floor at the motel room, and strikes her head on the edge of a stand on her way down.
• Demonic Possession: Tamara becomes a wholly different person after resurrecting from the dead. Chloe believes that this is because the magic that she used for her spell ended up possessing her, completely warping her mind into a twisted version of what she used to be.
• The Dog Bites Back: After much bullying and harassment from her classmates, Tamara shows absolutely no restraint in getting payback once she gains magic abilities to control others.
• Entitled to Have You: How she feels towards Bill after coming back from the dead. As she literally came back from the dead due to the love spell that was meant to bind them forever, Tamara feels that she deserves to be with him more than his wife, Allison.
• Erotic Dream: The film opens with Tamara having one about her English teacher, Mr. Notally. However, just as the dream is about to get to the good part, it turns into a nightmare as Tamara realises her entire class is watching and laughing, and she changes back to her unattractive self.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Throughout the film, Tamara uses her newfound mind manipulation powers to brainwash her classmates into harming themselves or doing her dirty work. And yet, she never uses said powers on Mr. Natolly to force him to be with her, which would make more sense than simply trying to remove Allison from the picture. She later confesses that the reason she didn't was because she wanted him to be with her of his own free will, rather than being compelled to do so by her magic.
  Tamara: With a touch, I could have made you mine, but I didn’t want you like that. Like some mindless slave.
• Evil Costume Switch: Tamara goes from a mousy nerd to a sexy vixen after her Face–Heel Turn.
• Face–Heel Turn: Tamara before the prank: a girl who put her very safety on the line by exposing a concerted campaign of wrongdoing by the football team. Tamara after her resurrection: a murderous Femme Fatale on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the classmates who tormented her, and the woman who stands in the way of her being with the person she loves.
• Fan Disservice: Tamara's rotting decomposing corpse rising from the grave, and when she transforms back into a corpse near the end of the film.
• Femme Fatale: Tamara becomes this after she is brought back from the dead due to the love binding spell, which gives her a newfound confidence in herself and a gorgeous makeover.
• Fully-Clothed Nudity: Tamara reacts like she is totally naked when Shawn pulls the cover off the motel bed, even though she is still wearing a Black Bra and Panties.
• Good Girl Gone Bad: She was a shy, but good-hearted teenage girl who didn’t seem to have a violent bone in her body. After being accidentally killed by her bullies and brought back to life with magic, Tamara becomes an extremely vindictive vixen who shows zero qualms when she tortures the bullies who tormented her.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Her classmates are in awe when she returns from the dead, looking absolutely gorgeous and sexy.
• Heel Realization: Tamara finally realizes she's become evil by reading Chloe's mind to find that Chloe's completely innocent, something she'd never even considered before.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Tamara towards the end of the film when she tries to mind control Chloe, only to discover she is an innocent in all this and that, even though Tamara had a good reason for hunting down the "monsters" responsible for her torment even before her death, she nonetheless became just like the "monsters" before her by tormenting innocent people in her quest for revenge.
• Hot Witch: While not at all unattractive when she is first introduced, Tamara is absolutely gorgeous after her spell brings her back from the dead.
• If I Can't Have You…: Tamara's attitude towards Bill. Later inverted when Bill decides that, since Tamara can have nobody but him, he should kill himself, which he does by throwing himself and Tamara off the roof, killing both of them in the process.
• I Just Want to Be Beautiful: In her dream of being with Mr. Natolly, Tamara is absolutely gorgeous and attractive, a stark contrast to what she looks like in real life. Once she is resurrected, she gains mind-controlling abilities, which gives her a newfound confidence in herself to embrace her sexy side.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Tamara reluctantly obeys her father's requests for a hug but uses her mind-controlling abilities to see into his mind and control him once she gets close enough.
• Lady in Red: After she is resurrected, Tamara incorporates the color red into all of her outfits. It’s also fitting because there’s no red anywhere else in the movie.
• Letting Her Hair Down: After coming back from the dead, Tamara starts to wear her hair down, reflecting how she has embraced her more confident and sexy side.
• Love Hungry: At the end of the day, Tamara just wants to be loved. Unfortunately, she ends up developing a crush on the only peron who is nice to her, the married English teacher Mr. Natolly.
• Love Makes You Evil: Her love spell, which was meant to bind her to Mr. Natolly, not only brings her back from the dead, but also completely removes all virtues she had before her death. After her resurrection, she shows zero qualms with doing anything possible to get what she wants, no matter who stands in her way.
• Mind Rape: Tamara does this to everyone she touches, but special mention goes out to what she does to Roger, forcing him to experience what it's like being Buried Alive, and to Kisha, exploiting her insecurity over her body. It gets graphic.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Tamara is made for this trope (mainly because she is portrayed by Jenna Dewan), especially during the sex scenes that she had with Bill in her dream during the beginning of the film and with Shawn and Patrick at a party during the second act.
  • There is also her Evil Makeover in the second act where she is transformed from a mousy, withdrawn nerdy girl into a very beautiful Vamp with magic powers and the tendency to wear outfits (such as shirts that have low necklines, short skirts, beautiful mini-dresses, and a corset) that highlight her voluptuous body: broad shoulders, large breasts, and long toned yet shapely legs.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Aside from getting revenge on her classmates for their Deadly Prank, Tamara planned on removing Allison, Mr. Natolly’s wife, from the picture so she could have him all to herself. When her attempts to break them up fail, she resorts to sending her mind-controlled slaves to kill Allison.
• Not Good with Rejection: After coming back to life with a sexy new makeover, she attempts to seduce Mr. Natolly into being with her, only to be rejected as he loved his wife. Tamara's response to this is to get in-between their marriage, and later try to have Allison killed.
• Of Corsets Sexy: She wears one when she goes to Mr. Natolly's house to seduce him.
• Patricide: Tamara uses her mind-control powers to force her father to kill himself by eating the glass of his beer bottle.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Tamara towards her victims.
  • Shawn and Patrick die from Tamara's magic. Not only because they were responsible for her untimely demise, but due to their history of drugging and raping girls.
  • Once Tamara discovers how her father really feels about her, she compels him to drink and then eat a whole six pack of beer bottle as payback for scaring off her mother and for fantasizing about molesting his own daughter.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Tamara delivers these to those she mind-controlled with her powers, specifically Roger, Mr. Riley, Sean, Patrick, Kisha and Chloe.
  Tamara: [to Mr. Riley; angry] If you loved Mom as much as you loved that bottle, then maybe she wouldn't have left. And you wouldn't be chasing your own daughter, you bastard!
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Once Tamara is brought back from the dead, she almost immediately goes on the warpath to get revenge against the ones who were responsible for her death.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Nerdy!Tamara actually looks very attractive when she dresses up for her meeting with "Bill". Then, of course, there's her Evil Makeover in the second act.
• That Man Is Dead: Tamara in her undead form when the others say that there's some good left in her to do the right thing.
  Tamara: No! Tamara is dead!
• The Vamp: Tamara after her resurrection.

Chloe