Recent Reviews
DVD Review: Tamara
By HammerFanatic
May 24, 2006, 22:02

In 2005, writer Jeffrey Reddick (Final Destination, Final Destination 2, Final Destination 3) and director Jeremy Haft (Grizzly Mountain) brought to the screen, Tamara, another entry in that ever-popular sub-genre, 'Harassed Teen Finally Gets Highly Pissed and Kicks Ass'. The cast includes; Jenna Dewan (Tamara), Matthew Marsden (Mr. Natolly), Chad Faust (Jesse), Gil Hacohen (Patrick), Katie Stuart (Chloe), Claudette Mink (Sheila), Melissa Elias (Kisha) and Chris Sigurdson (Mr. Riley).

Tamara (Dewan) is one of those high school kids that always seems to be an outcast, no matter how you look at her. Tamara is very plain-looking, she's big into all things supernatural and dabbles in witchcraft and as rotten as high school kids can sometimes be, this has Tamara always the outcast and on the outside looking in as far as high school cliques go. The one bright spot in Tamara's otherwise dark and depressing life is her English teacher, Mr. Natolly (Marsden). Natolly seems to believe in Tamara's talent as a writer and genuinely likes the girl. As is often the case of someone so starved for positive attention, Tamara develops a major crush on Natolly. Life goes from bad to worse for Tamara when Natolly publishes a report that Tamara wrote in the high school paper.....a report on steroid use among the school athletes. Unfortunately for Tamara, the crush she has on Natolly doesn't go unnoticed by her fellow classmates and they devise a plan to exact their revenge on Tamara and humiliate her at the same time. One of her tormentors places a call to Tamara, posing as Natolly and professes his love for her and asks her to meet him at a motel. Tamara, knowing that Natolly is married and he and his wife are expecting a child, voices her concern to 'Natolly' and he convinces her that all is over with his wife and she is the one he wants. Tamara agrees to meet 'Natolly' at the motel and is thrilled at the chance for some true happiness. Meanwhile, the tormentors make ready for the rendezvous with a video camera to capture the revenge and total humiliation of Tamara. Tamara arrives at the motel and makes ready for her meeting with Natolly. It isn't long before the classmates charge in and Tamara is horrified to see she's the victim of a cruel joke. As Tamara is attempting to flee the motel room, she's tossed backwards and falls into a stand, cracking her skull open and to the horror of the classmates, she dies. Being the upstanding citizens they are, they decide their only option is to quickly bury Tamara and act as if nothing ever happened. They bury Tamara and arrive at school the following day looking as innocent as angels. Imagine their shock when Tamara sashays into class, very much alive. Now, this isn't the Tamara they all knew and made the butt of their jokes, this Tamara is sporting a very hot and sexy new look and has the attitude to match. These smug teens thought they'd gotten away with murder, but this new and improved model of Tamara has her own idea of revenge and these teens are in for one helluva ride on the revenge train. You see, Tamara isn't going to dirty her hands with this game of revenge....oh no, these nasty teens are going to commit some serious acts of pain and torture on each other!

Tamara is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and looks pretty good. Audio options are English (Dolby Digital 2.0) with Spanish subtitles. Bonus features include:

OK, I had to stand in front of a mirror and say these words to be sure these words were coming out of my mouth.....I enjoyed this film! There, I said it and while I'm somewhat surprised by that statement, it's true. I went into this viewing not really sure what to expect, I had viewed the trailer for the film on another DVD and was slightly intrigued, but also thought I was in for another teen revenge film, but this was just different enough that I completely enjoyed the end result. Perhaps because I did enjoy, Final Destination and Final Destination 2 (I haven't seen 3), it was a forgone conclusion that I'd enjoy this film, but going into this viewing, I didn't realize that the writer of this film was Reddick. Reddick takes an old story of an outcast teen and a revenge factor and adds a whole new twist to the tale and it comes across solid for me. There was more gore and blood than I thought I'd see and it's one of those films that takes no effort to sit through and for me, that's always a treat! I'd not hesitate in recommending this film to horror fans and chances are after a viewing, you may want to add this little gem to your collection, I know I would.

Buy Tamara on DVD at Amazon.com