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| Lionsgate (USA). Region 1, NTSC. 1.78:1 (16:9 enhanced). English DD 2.0. Spanish Subtitles. 97 minutes |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Jeremy Haft
Starring: Jenna Dewan,
Katie Stuart, Matthew Marsden, Chad Faust, Bryan
Clark, Melissa Elias
Screenplay: Jeffrey
Reddick
Country: USA |
There is one thing you can guarantee about
some direct to DVD or independent flicks; they
wear their influences on their sleeves. Obviously
aimed at the Scream teen horror
set, Tamara has elements of some
great and some not so great movies: Carrie, The Rage – Carrie 2, The
Craft – you know, the 'picked
on nerd girl finally gets pushed too far and using
powers beyond those of normal folk gets revenge
on the teen stereotypes that belittled her'
sub-genre, which, when you consider the cornerstone
is the idea of sexy chick in school uniform who
goes nutzoid, isn't a bad thing!
Tamara tells the tale, surprisingly
of Tamara (Jenna Dewan), an unattractive nerdy
witchcraft- practicing chick who has a has a crush
that is bordering on obsession with her literature
teacher Mr Natoly (Matthew Marsden). Natoly sees
Tamara as a shrinking violet who just needs a
small push to get her to come out of her shell,
so he decides to publish a piece she has written
about steroid abuse in the High School sports
teams, which of course instead of helping her,
destroys her. She goes from being the butt of
everyone's jokes, to a hated and now targeted
victim of fellow student's malice, especially
Patrick (Gil Hacohen) and his pal, Shawn (Bryan
Clark). These two decide to play a cruel trick
on Tamara, which results in her death… but
due to a spell she has cast, she returns from
the grave as a sexy seductress on a trail of bloody,
violent revenge against all who teased, taunted
or spurned her.
If you can overlook the fact that most of the
school kids are suffering from Beverly
Hills 90210 syndrome (you know, supposed
to be 18, but looks 28), Tamara is an alright film. There are many opportunities
where the film could have really become great,
but it just seemed to not quite want to go to
those places. There are themes which seem to hover,
but are never really explored, which makes the
commentary a bit frustrating, as they describe
where certain characters were going to be fleshed
out, but for whatever reason, weren't, and
these ideas would have improved this film . Had
the underlying ideas of parental sexual abuse,
teen suicide and peer pressure been pulled into
the forefront of this story, instead of just glossed
over, this would have been an excellent film. |
| Video |
| The picture is a clean Widescreen 16x9 (which
the covers calls 'DVD Screen Format')
transfer, with no apparent faults, but there seems
to be, on a very rare occasion, slight grain in
the backgrounds. |
| Audio |
| The sound is only in Dolby 2.0, so don't
expect earth shattering sound that will bring down
the walls, but it being the type of story that it
is, it doesn't need to be, so it doesn't
suffer too much from ordinary sound. |
| Extra Features |
The commentary is done by writer Jeffrey Reddick,
of whose original story Final Destination was made from, and director Jeremy Haft, who was
less impressively responsible for the Tim Thomerson
vehicle Red Team. The first thing
mentioned in the commentary is the fact the writer
was influenced by Carrie when
penning this movie, and wanted Carrie to kick
everyone's ass, so I guess mission accomplished,
because that is exactly what this film is like.
A decent commentary that has great input from
both parties, and what makes it especially good
is the humour and familiarity between the two,
and also the descriptions of some of the missing
scenes which would have fleshed out some of the
smaller characters.
This disc also has trailers for other Lion's
Gate releases: Odd Girl Out: The Hidden
Culture of Aggression in Girls and Hostel. |
| The Verdict |
Tamara is a good film that had
the potential to bea great film, but some opportunities,
in my humble opinion, were missed. This is one of
those 'OK' films; The acting is OK,
The FX are OK, the story and direction are OK, everything
about this film is OK, and that is the problem.
It just never quite gets good. It seems more like
an episode of R. L. Stein's Goosebumps or an after school special at times.
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