Editorials
‘Tamara’ – Digging Up ‘Final Destination’ Creator’s 2006 Revenge Horror Movie
High school is hell for people like Jenna Dewan’s put-upon character in the 2006 horror movie Tamara. The pathetic namesake doesn’t have any friends to call her own, and she spends most of her time daydreaming about her hunky teacher when she’s not playing with the dark arts. Now, Tamara thinks her life is finally starting to improve when her crush comes a-calling, but as things tend to go in these kinds of movies, the sudden attention isn’t real. No, someone is out to humiliate her. And like other wronged women in the horror genre, Tamara won’t rest until she gets her revenge.
Before Tamara Riley takes the stage as a violent vixen from beyond the grave, Dewan plays a smart yet frequently bullied girl at Hafton High School. The performance is convincing, quickly endearing her to viewers. Director Jeremy Haft’s movie then goes down a familiar path to reach the revenge portion of the story; here Tamara’s classmates lash out after she writes an exposé about steroid use among the football team. The article is praised by the object of Tamara’s affection, Mr. Natolly (Matthew Marsden), but jocks Shawn and Patrick (Bryan Clark and Gil Hacohen) use it as motivation for a cruel and foreboding prank.
For those who can’t wait for the carnage to occur, the vengeance parts of Tamara come along sooner than later. After the audience absorbs just how unhappy Tamara’s life is, at home and school, they are forced to watch her die. Shawn and Patrick’s scheme includes preying on Tamara’s unrequited feelings for Mr. Natolly; they lure her to a seedy motel for a secret dalliance between the student and teacher. And with a few classmates waiting in another room (Katie Stuart, Chad Faust, Marc Devigne and Melissa Elias), three of them unaware of the hosts’ hidden agenda, Tamara’s utter embarrassment is caught on video.
Jeffrey Reddick’s screenplay for Tamara channels Carrie at first, but the act of burying Tamara’s body and then taking a vow of secrecy — Tamara died from an accidental blow to the head — is a callback to movies like Prom Night and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The main difference, though, is Tamara doesn’t hide the identity of its angry avenger. No sooner than the following Monday does Tamara show up to Mr. Natolly’s class, fully made-over and itching to kill. The fact that Tamara doesn’t disclose the others’ crime creates a short-lived amount of tension before the story moves on to the actual payback.
Dewan is clearly having fun as her foxy character parades around the school, reveling in her transformation, and making Shawn and the other wrongdoers sweat. The audience is also undoubtedly enjoying the show. Reddick’s penchant for outlandish death sequences eventually comes out as Tamara delivers tailor-made punishments to all those connected to her premature passing. First up is the token nerd whose involvement in the prank wasn’t exactly malicious, yet like the others, he didn’t do the right thing in the end. His public demise is the appetizer before the remaining offenders are tracked down at an ill-fated house party.
One distinct visual aspect placing Tamara squarely in the noughties decade is its level of lingering violence. The moderate use of practical effects and makeup manages to cause a few winces from time to time. Tamara’s killing spree is neither brief nor unimaginative — no one would expect anything less from Reddick, the creator of the Final Destination franchise. And the ensuing murders are as enthusiastic as they are customized. From Tamara compelling her perverted, drunken father to literally eat beer bottles, to her preying on someone’s eating disorder, the movie gets damn nasty at certain points.
Thoughts of other horror movies crop up when watching Tamara. Carrie is the go-to comparison, but this movie’s back end shows more traces of the sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2. Going a touch deeper into the history of teen-horror, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 is an even more accurate spiritual companion; these two movies would make for a killer double feature. And while Tamara isn’t granting wishes, her magic powers echo those of other masters of manifestation, such as The Djinn of Wishmaster. She has the potency of Death from the Final Destination series, but Tamara’s knack for bizarre butchery makes her more like Damien from the Omen series.
Tamara feels like something out of straight-to-video, nineties horror. It’s lurid, gory and darkly amusing. Despite its mean streak, though, this movie has an emotional element; after Tamara gets the vengeance out of her system, she realizes what’s been missing since she came back from the dead. In the same moment, viewers remember why they cared about Tamara in the first place. So if the body count and gruesomeness don’t win you over, perhaps Jenna Dewan’s persuasive performance as the titular villain will.
Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.
The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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