Vengeful and psychotic villainess Tamara Riley
Tamara Riley (Jenna Dewan Tatum) is the titular main villainess from the 2005 film Tamara. She was a shy, intelligent, moody, melancholic, and very calm and sincere Hafton High School student and, as her brief backstory revealed, was raised by her alcoholic and neglectful father after her mother left them. Due to her dark and troubled past in which her mother abandoned her, her alcoholic father neglected her, and she was bullied due to her physical appearance and shy nature, Tamara was transformed from a nice and shy girl into a conflicted, ruthless, dangerous, and very vindictive killer.
Introduction[]
The film's beginning also established Tamara's affinity for witchcraft (a hobby she inherited from her mother) and had a crush on her English teacher Bill Natolly; as shown by a dream sequence she has during class where he passionately kisses her before classmates suddenly appear and mock her, with Bill also reneging his declaration of love and joining in the laughing. In reality, Tamara was the subject of mockery from many of her classmates, which increased following an article she wrote regarding steroid use among the football team being published in the school newspaper.
After being threatened by athletes Shawn and Patrick, as well as being rejected by Bill when she attempted to kiss him, Tamara returned home in tears, later beginning the process of performing a love binding spell to earn Bill's affections as well as give her power to make others do her bidding and destroy those in her way. However, when it came time to cut her own hand with a dagger, Tamara backed out. Meanwhile, having had her attempted kiss with Bill witnessed by Shawn's girlfriend Kisha, leading the two and Patrick to plot a revenge prank against Tamara using her crush on Bill. To do so, Shawn called Tamara and posed as Bill to lure her to a motel for a tryst, with Tamara eagerly accepting under the belief that her ritual somehow worked.
However, after undressing and getting into the motel bed, Tamara was horrified when Shawn comes in and taunts Tamara while pointing the camera at her, driving Tamara to put her clothes on and flee. But before she does, Chloe (who had been having a party with Shawn, Patrick, Kisha, along with two other unknowing peers, Chloe's boyfriend Jesse and Roger) came out to console her, only for Tamara to believe she was involved in the prank. Enraged at Chloe's perceived betrayal, Tamara shoved Chloe back into the room and began attacking her, with the ensuing struggle to stop her resulting in Tamara striking her head on a coffee table, killing her.
Events & Heel Turn[]
Tamara after her return from the dead
Afterwards, the teens agreed to bury Tamara's body and keep silent about their role in her death, with Chloe reluctantly agreeing after Shawn threatened to frame her as Tamara's killer if she went to the police. However, the next day, the teens were horrified when Tamara walked into class the next day, having been brought back to life due to her murder completing the ritual she was performing.
Now possessing both beauty and the mind control abilities she desired, Tamara began her heel turn by planning to kill the people responsible for burying her alive; starting with Roger while he was in the AV room. After causing the TVs to play the footage of her death, Tamara confronted Roger and rejected his apologies and relief over her being alive; blasting him for burying her and using her powers to make Roger experience the various feelings of being buried alive. Tamara further displayed her new sadistic and cruel persona by calling Roger a loser and mocking him for his history of self-harm, before forcing him to broadcast a message to the school proclaiming one should "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil", before forcing him to cut off his own ear and tongue with a razor blade before plunging it into his eye, killing him and staging his death as a suicide. Tamara later confronted the remaining five teens, rejecting Chloe and Jesse's attempted apologies and revelations that they had no knowledge of the prank, declaring that they would "see" when Chloe asked what she wanted.
Tamara went to Bill's house later and attempted to seduce her teacher, being dismayed when he revealed he liked Tamara before her transformation and asking for her to leave when she forcibly kissed him. Bill reaffirmed his love for his wife Allison (a guidance counselour at Hafton) afterwards, with Tamara suggestively saying that Bill wanted her and that it was only a matter of time before she had him to herself. Tamara later confronted Allison during a session with her, making callous insinuations regarding Allison's struggles with fertility and declaring as she left that she would never be able to give Bill children. After learning about Tamara's actions from Allison, Bill confronted her in his classroom and ordered her to leave them alone, only for the villainess to refuse to give up on her obsessive quest to win over Bill. At home, Tamara's father complimented his daughter after noticing her transformed appearance, with Tamara using her powers to see that her father had an incestous attraction to her and that his alcoholism had driven her mother away, killing her father by forcing him to eat a beer bottle.
At a party being held by Patrick, Tamara used her mind control powers to seduce both him and Shawn, forcing them to first dance with her before having sex with each other; doing so as payback for learning through her powers that Shawn had date raped several girls. Kisha later went to the room to confront Tamara, who locked Chloe and Jesse from the room, with Kisha becoming another victim of Tamara's mind control. Tamara went on to compliment Kisha's looks and reveal her past envy of her, before taunting her about her being bulimic and forcing her to vomit profusely. Tamara's sinister influence caused Kisha to begin binge eating, before she was taken away from the party by Chloe and Jesse. A still spellbound Kisha later called Tamara to inform her of Chloe's plan to tell Bill about her actions, forcing Jesse to take her phone from her before Chloe knocked Kisa out with a punch.
Climax[]
As Bill joined Chloe and Jesse in going to Tamara's house where they find her father dead and the spell they had unknowingly helped her complete, the evil Tamara sent the brainwashed Shawn and Patrick to kill Allison, only for her plan to rid herself of her perceived romantic rival when Allison killed both boys in self-defense. After realizing her plan failed, Tamara used her powers to make an officer patrolling the Natolly house tell her where Allison was, Tamara went to the hospital and seduced another officer into joining her pursuit of Allison and Bill, while having a brainwashed Kisha attack Chloe and Jesse, eventually succeeding in killing Jesse by having Kisha stab him to death.
After finally cornering Bill and Allison on the roof, Tamara blasted Allison as a "barren bitch" and accused Bill of (in her mind) not appreciating the sacrifice she made in her deranged pursuit of him. But just as Tamara prepared to have the officer shoot Allison, Chloe attacked her from behind with an axe, blasting her former friend as a monster. Tamara, however, easily pulled the axe from her back as her wound healed, slapping Chloe to the ground as she declared she couldn't be killed. But when she began to try and brainwash Chloe as well, she found herself unable to due to learning through visions that Chloe was sincere in caring about Tamara and having no role in the prank that cost her her life. Stunned at the revelation and seemingly remorseful for her deeds, Tamara was encouraged by Bill not to let her powers destroy her, prompting her to decry her actions and reveal that she wanted Bill to love her of his own free will (explaining why she never used her powers to brainwash him).
\As she made her declaration to Bill, Tamara slowly morphed into a rotted corpse, her powers beginning to fade. Despite her apparent remorse, Tamara refused to accept her fate and told Bill that as long as they weren't together, she wouldn't stop her evil pursuit. With that, Bill sacrificed himself to save Allison and Chloe by grabbing Tamara and jumping off the roof with her, seemingly killing the vengeful villainess. However, the film ended with a still brainwashed Kisha grabbing Tamara's spell book from Chloe's jeep, revealing Tamara's remorse as false and indicating she intended to use Kisha to continue her evil deeds.
Trivia[]
- Jenna Dewan Tatum later appeared on The CW's Supergirl as redeemed villainess Lucy Lane.
Gallery[]
