Tamara is a 2005 teen horror film written by
Jeffrey Reddick and starring
Jenna Dewan, Matthew Marsden, and Chad Faust.
Tamara Riley is
a mousy, withdrawn girl whose exposure of the football team's steroid use to the newspapers made her the personal enemy of half the school. Not helping matters is the fact that she's also into both witchcraft and
her English teacher,
Bill Natoli. After attempting to cast a love spell but not having the guts to actually spill her blood to complete the ritual, Tamara is taken in by a prank by her vengeful classmates, pretending to be Bill so that they can humiliate her on camera. In the commotion, however,
Tamara is killed by accident, forcing the kids to hide her body and pretend that nothing happened. Briefly, it seems to have worked.
Problem is, that blow to her head was just the thing to complete Tamara's ritual. She comes
Back from the Dead looking better than ever, equipped with the power to read and control people's minds and perceptions with only a touch. And she is pissed off.
As you can guess, the plot can pretty much be summed up as "
Carrie, only with witchcraft and
more gore," to the point where it could've served as
a remake of, or sequel to, that film with a few script changes (it
wouldn't have been the first time, either). It can, however, be
quite entertaining if you go in with
the right mindset.
This film provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Tamara's father is an alcoholic who rapes his daughter.
- Ambiguously Brown: Kisha.
- Body Horror: Tamara's Mind Rape of Roger and Kisha. All of it is in their heads, but... brrrr. Vermiphobesnote People who are afraid of worms might want to skip past Roger's scene in particular.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Done to Shawn, Patrick, Kisha, and a cop in order to kill Allison, Tamara's romantic rival.
- Character Title
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Tamara, to Bill.
- Covers Always Lie: That axe that Tamara's wielding on the cover? She never uses it.
- Deadly Prank
- Double Standard: Rape—Female on Male: Averted. While they were undoubtedly assholes, Tamara's homoerotic "rape" of Sean and Patrick is morally equated, by Tamara herself, to their date raping of countless young women.
- The End... Or Is It?: Kisha, still Brainwashed and Crazy even after Tamara's death, grabs Tamara's spell book out of the car.
- Evil Makeover: Tamara goes from a Hollywood Nerd to a Femme Fatale 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.
- Follow the Leader: A shy, frumpy teenage girl with an abusive parent who just needs a makeover to look beautiful is the victim of a prank Gone Horribly Wrong, then goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge with the help of deadly supernatural powers... now why does that sound familiar? It even goes the extra mile by following the ending of the original book rather than that of the more famous film, having the villain's rampage be stopped when she mind rapes the Spoiled Sweet girl and realizes that she wasn't so bad.
- Gorn: The kills can get very bloody.
- Guy on Guy Is Hot: Tamara brainwashes Shawn and Patrick into making out and having sex for her enjoyment, so that they can experience what it's like to be in the position of the girls who they exploited for sex.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Bill kills himself in order to break Tamara's curse and put her down again.
- Hollywood Nerd: Tamara before her resurrection. Also Roger.
- Hot Teacher: Bill. No wonder Tamara wants him. Ditto for his wife Allison, though she's a guidance counselor.
- Hot Witch: Guess who?
- 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.
- Jerk Jock: Sean and Patrick.
- Karmic Death: Tamara loves to play with her victim's insecurities and deficiencies before inflicting Psychic Assisted Suicides on them. Roger, who did nothing while the rest of the group (minus Chloe) agreed to cover up Tamara's death, kills himself in a manner referencing the Three Wise Monkeys. Her father, a man who loved the bottle more than his (now ex-)wife, eats a glass beer bottle that tears apart his mouth, throat, and esophagus from the inside.
- Literal Metaphor: Roger's death. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
- 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.
- Monkey Morality Pose: The quotation the pose comes from is referenced by Roger during his Psychic Assisted Suicide, in which he cuts off an ear (hear no evil) and the tip of his tongue (speak no evil) before finally shoving the box-cutter into his eye (see no evil).
- Only Sane Woman: Chloe.
- Parental Incest: Part and parcel of Tamara's... troubled home life.
- Psychic Assisted Suicide: How Tamara kills Roger and her father.
- Self Harm: Roger cuts his wrists.
- Sexual Karma: What Tamara does to Sean and Patrick.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Nerdy!Tamara actually looks pretty good when she dresses up for her meeting with "Bill". Then, of course, there's her Evil Makeover in the second act.
- Soft Glass: Averted with Tamara's father's death, in a very graphic manner.
- Surfer Dude: Jesse.
- Tap on the Head: Averted with Tamara, who is killed when she knocks her head on the edge of a table. Played straight when Chloe punches out Kisha, though, and when Allison knocks out Sean.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Tamara wants this with Bill, much to his embarrassment and eventual misfortune.
- The Vamp: Tamara, after her resurrection.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Tamara makes Kisha think that she's vomiting to the point where she's coughing up her guts.
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