Tamara
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Scraps: Up until “Tamara”, I always had a thing for the good looking girl who’s outside the “in” crowd. Remember Watts from “Some Kind of Wonderful”? How could you not have a crush on her? Eric Stoltz needed to have his head cut off for not giving her the time of day until the end of the movie. And Neve Campbell in “The Craft”? Yeah, so she’s not popular and has some skin issues…but she’s so damn cute!

Anyways, all this was shucked aside after seeing “Tamara”. Now, behind every ugly duckling might be the beautiful swan, or it might be some hot psycho-bitch that’ll come back from the dead and mess with me. I’m a gambling man by nature, but holy crap, that’s too big a “what if” for me to mess with.

Sure, death GREATLY improved Tamara’s looks and wardrobe, and gave her cool powers, but there’s more to life than a killer pair of legs. I’d take the “let’s be friends” route and pray that she doesn’t hack me to bits.

Rufus: I think Watts’ issue was with her boyish haircut, and weight lifting gloves that she always wore, but I thought the same thing. “Tamara” comes from the “She’s All That” school of uglies. Comb the hair, remove the glasses and viola! We have a beautiful woman. Some advise though, while hot, she has a problem with keeping a grudge. The grudge of course was her getting killed by your stereotypical bullies. This leads us into the synopsis of course. Scraps, why don’t you clue our reading audience in on the skinny of “Tamara”.

Scraps: Lovely segue as always. Tamara has what social workers define as a “crappy life”. She’s poor, her dad touches her in that creepy Uncle Ernie from “Tommy” way, she gets picked on at school, and apparently gets her clothes from the Holly Hobby Boutique. She’s a bright pupil though, so she’s got that going for her, and she enjoys spending her alone time dabbling in the dark arts. When her young, virile English teacher submits her essay on steroid use in her high school to the paper, things start to get ugly. The main jock on the block suddenly has his scholarship in jeopardy, and so the evil cool kids decide to get even with a wicked prank.

As pranks oft-times do, this goes horribly awry, and Tamara is killed. Our panicked high-schoolers decide to bury the body, and pretend nothing happened (we’ll ignore the huge pool of blood on the carpet in the hotel…it was there when we checked in).

So, with some conveniently packed shovels, they bury the poor girl in the woods, and go on with their lives. Imagine their dismay when Tamara shows up for school the next day, suddenly uber-hot, and uber-pissed. It’s all about undead revenge from here…and looking good doing it! Those smarmy high-school kids thought the SAT was a bitch…wait until they have to deal with vengeance from beyond the grave!!

Rufus: Well there you have it. “Tamara” in a nut shell. Have we heard the story before? Of course we have. There is nothing new here. Think parts “Carrie”, “The Craft”, and a jacked up after school special, and you have “Tamara”. The execution of the film is what made this good for me. I liked this movie. The acting is good, there is gore, and best of all….inventive deaths. Why are movies like “Wishmaster”, or “Leprechaun” so popular? It boils down to inventive deaths. There were a couple here that impressed me. I do not know the budget that this film had, but the gore was there impressively when needed also. Always a plus. Hey, this movie takes place in high school right? Damn Scraps, where was the shower scene nudity, or the drunken woman nude scene? Now that I think about it, there was no nudity at all.

Scraps: True…very true. And it saddened me so. But then again, this wasn’t a slasher movie, where the villain is cutting up every teenager in town because of some curse or something…we have a very specific list of victims here – everyone that screwed with Tamara.

While there weren’t a lot of deaths, and the gore was limited to just a couple of scenes, I will have to agree that they were definitely inventive. What she did to her dad was downright hard to watch. I don’t want to spoil it for the Bums that haven’t seen this yet, but it was quite a unique way to go. Besides the top notch visuals, the sound also made this scene for me. Gah! I can still hear it! Crunch…gurgle…crunch…gurgle…

As for the story, I liked it. It was very focused, and didn’t go off on any wild tangents. We had only a few characters to keep track of, and while the ending was a bit abrupt, I thought it made perfect sense within the plot. Tamara was on a very specific mission: screw with everyone that hosed her over and when she’s done, make her teacher fall in love with her. One thing that bothered me was the whole party scene. I mean, if you just buried somebody, and they came back from the dead and were pissed off at you, would you really go to Kinko’s and run off flyers for a party? But then again, I’m not thinking like an 18 year old. At that age, I probably would have invited Tamara and asked if she had any cute friends.

Rufus: True. The party made sense in the context of high schoolers, but come on. After "blank" gets killed in front of the school, I would have been a little down. Not these guys though.

"Wow. So brutal. I will never be the same again. There is only one thing to do now........DANCE!"

It seemed out of place. Also, while it made perfect sense why it did not happen, I was hoping for the explosive Carrie 2 party death count. Again, it would have been out of place, but I can dream. The movie was played smartly close to vest. She didn't go off killing random people for no reason, and the ending did make sense. This movie followed it's own rules that were set up, which is one thing that I always harp about.

Another thing I liked about this film was how conflicted you were in caring for Tamara. At first, you want her to get revenge. Then after awhile, you switch your opinion, and wait for her to get killed. I found this refreshing. Tamara was not cut or dry, compassion and empathy, or pure hatred. It walked the fine line on who to root for. My rooting went for Katie Holmes. Oops, I mean Katie Stewart.

Scraps: Good one! This is a great little horror movie that deserves a viewing. Catch it in the theaters if you can. For being a breath of fresh air in the horror genre, for some great high-budget looking effects and filming, and even for having a decent soundtrack, I’m all about Tamara, and I give her 4 cans out of 5. I’m looking forward to the sequel already.

Rufus: I can't agree with you more. After going into this film not expecting much at all, I was floored by the quality of everything. I am very impressed with this movie, and all involved. I have to dock some cannage for the story not being anything new, lack of nudity, and also the pitcher or catcher scene. Yikes! I will give it some cannage for the great acting from everyone, direction, and a few great gore scenes reminiscent of Fulci. I also give this a 4 cans out of 5. Check it out in the theaters, if you just want to sit down and have a good time.

Added:  Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Related Link:  Tamara's website
Language: eng[ Did you find this review helpful?  Yes  No ]
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