Another High School Horror, Another Corpse in the Locker
There are bad horror movies, and then there are horror movies so desperately derivative that they make you want to personally apologize to Stephen King. Tamara (2005), directed by Jeremy Haft, is one such cinematic corpse. It’s what happens when you mix Carrie, The Craft, and a stack of old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes, then run them through a blender you bought at a Canadian pawn shop. Out spills Tamara: part zombie, part witch, part seductress, and 100% proof that even Jenna Dewan couldn’t dance her way out of this mess.
The Premise: Dead Girl, Same Old Story
Tamara Riley is the outcast—lonely, shy, bullied, with an alcoholic father who could win awards in “Least Supportive Parent” competitions. She has a crush on her English teacher, Bill Natolly (Matthew Marsden, whose performance makes vanilla ice cream look like Sriracha). After a mean-spirited prank goes wrong, Tamara dies… only to return hotter, meaner, and bent on revenge.
Sound familiar? That’s because it’s literally Carrie, except replace prom with a Canadian high school that looks like it rented its lockers from a bankrupt YMCA. Tamara doesn’t even have the decency to pick one monster lane. Is she a witch? A zombie? A succubus? Apparently she’s all three, like a supernatural buffet of bad writing.
The Villains: A Pack of After-School Special Bullies
The teens who torment Tamara are so stereotypical they could have been assembled in a lab:
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Shawn and Patrick, the jocks fueled by steroids and malice.
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Kisha, the insecure mean girl with an eating disorder.
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Roger, the brooding emo who looks like he auditioned for The Cure but got rejected.
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Chloe, the “nice one” whose sole job is to feel guilty.
Their prank involves tricking Tamara into thinking her teacher wants to hook up, filming her undressing in a motel, and then—oops—killing her. It’s all fun and games until your victim comes back looking like she got a makeover from Satan’s glam squad.
The Resurrection: Plastic Surgery Courtesy of the Grave
When Tamara returns, she’s suddenly gorgeous. Because nothing says “spilled blood ritual” like a free spa day from hell. One day she’s pale, timid, and wearing the costume designer’s idea of “ugly clothes,” and the next she’s strutting into school like she’s about to audition for Mean Girls 2.
Apparently, being murdered is the best skincare routine on the market. Forget Sephora—just get buried alive, let your blood complete a spell, and wake up looking like Jenna Dewan.
The Revenge: Spells, Sex, and Soap Opera Nonsense
Tamara’s methods of revenge range from mildly spooky to hilariously dumb. She forces two macho jocks to hook up at a party (played with the subtlety of a 2005 CW drama). She torments Kisha by making her binge-eat, because nothing screams “terrifying witch powers” like magical bulimia. She makes her alcoholic dad eat a beer bottle, which, while admittedly gnarly, still looks like a PSA against binge drinking that got out of hand.
The kills are inconsistent and tonally bizarre. One kid mutilates himself while broadcasting live on the school PA, slicing off body parts like he’s auditioning for Saw Jr. Another gets forced into awkward gay panic sex. Meanwhile, Tamara spends half her screen time trying to seduce her English teacher, who resists her advances with all the charisma of a wet sponge. It’s less “horror” and more “awkward high school theater production of Fatal Attraction.”
The Romance That Nobody Wanted
Mr. Natolly is supposed to be noble and conflicted. Instead, he’s a walking HR violation waiting to happen. Watching him resist Tamara’s advances is like watching someone politely refuse a Jehovah’s Witness at the door: uncomfortable, unnecessary, and bound to end badly.
And yet, the film dares to end with him embracing Tamara, kissing her corpse-beautiful face, and throwing himself off a roof with her. Yes, he dies with the student who stalked him, harassed his wife, and turned half his school into meat puppets. That’s not romance—that’s a crime scene.
The Acting: Drama Club Energy
Jenna Dewan does what she can with the role, and to her credit, she fully commits to both Awkward Tamara and Hot Revenge Tamara. But everyone else seems like they’re rehearsing for a play nobody’s going to attend. Katie Stuart (Chloe) delivers guilt-ridden looks like she’s trying to win a staring contest. The jocks sneer like Disney Channel villains. And Marsden… well, he looks perpetually confused, like he accidentally walked onto the wrong set and decided to stay.
The Tone: Horror or High School Special?
The movie can’t decide what it wants to be. Is it a supernatural slasher? A dark teen drama? A cautionary tale about bullying? At one point it’s gory, at another it’s a twisted soap opera, and then it tries to be heartfelt. It’s like someone stitched together three different movies and then slapped a spellbook on top to justify the mess.
Even the soundtrack feels confused, lurching between ominous horror stings and early-2000s “edgy teen” rock. You half-expect Linkin Park to show up and narrate Tamara’s pain.
The Ending: Death by Melodrama
The climax takes place on a hospital rooftop, because apparently all Canadian horror movies must end at elevated heights. Tamara tries to win over Chloe, realizes she’s a monster, decays into her corpse-self, and then gets dragged into a kiss-suicide pact with Mr. Natolly. It’s meant to be tragic. Instead, it’s laughable. Watching them plummet is less heartbreaking and more “thank God, roll credits.”
Of course, the movie can’t resist sequel bait. The spellbook is snatched up at the end, because nothing says “We believe in this franchise” like leaving the door open for Tamara 2: Goth Harder. Spoiler: that sequel never happened.
The Message: Don’t Bully, Or Else You’ll Get a CW Villain
If Tamara has a moral, it’s this: don’t bully the weird kid, because she might rise from the grave hotter than you and make you eat yourself into oblivion. It tries to be a cautionary tale about cruelty, but it ends up being more about how death is the best glow-up strategy.
Final Judgment: Dead on Arrival
Tamara could have been campy fun. It could have leaned into its ridiculous premise, embraced the gore, and gone full midnight-movie chaos. Instead, it plays everything with straight-faced melodrama, dragging itself through clichés like a zombie through molasses. It’s not scary, it’s not sexy, and it’s definitely not smart.
The only horrifying thing here is the wasted potential—and maybe the idea that Matthew Marsden’s English teacher is considered crush-worthy.
