High school misfit Tamara Riley (Jenna Dewan) is shunned by everyone else in town after penning an article about steroid abuse amidst the local football team, except for nice girl Chloe Bowman (Katie Stuart). Plain, awkward, but intelligent, Tamara studies witchcraft in her spare time and harbours a secret crush on handsome English teacher Bill Natolly (former Coronation Street actor Matthew Marsden). Being faithful to his wife Allison (Claudette Mink), the school guidance councillor, he gently dissuades her. Hateful jocks Shawn (Bryan Clark) and Patrick (Gil Hacohen) and bitchy Kisha (Melissa Elias) learn of Tamara’s unrequited love and orchestrate a cruel prank whereby they lure her to a motel room and videotape her humiliation, with Chloe, her boyfriend Jesse (Chad Faust), and school nerd Roger (Marc Devigne) unwitting bystanders. Events spiral out of control and Tamara is accidentally shoved against a table and dies. Chloe insists they go to the police, but the terror-stricken teens elect to bury Tamara’s body in the woods. However, by means of magic, Tamara returns from the grave. Reborn as a pouty sexpot in a short skirt, she wreaks supernatural revenge.
Tamara dearly wants to be a Carrie (1976) for the millennium but offers a muddled and, one presumes unintentionally, reactionary tale. Indeed all the criticisms levelled at Carrie (its presumed amorality, the misfit’s vengeance not distinguishing between good and bad), carry far more weight here. Writer Jeffrey Reddick quickly turns Tamara from downtrodden misfit to conscience-free killer, reinforcing the In-Crowd’s perception of her as a weirdo to be isolated and feared. As the plot plays out, Tamara makes Roger cut off his ears and tongue and gouge out his eyes, forces her lecherous father to eat glass bottles, makes Kisha binge and purge herself to near-death, and hypnotises date rapists Shawn and Patrick into having gay sex. Admittedly their comeuppance is pretty funny, but the bulk of the film concerns Tamara pursuing Mr. Natolly in various racy outfits, while trying to drive Mrs. Natolly insane.
Lead actress Jenna Dewan ably transforms from Plain Jane into a teen temptress in a tight little dress, but has done better work in her toe-tapping roles in dance flicks Step Up (2006) and Take the Lead (2006). Katie Stuart shows some promise but the remainder of the cast are dead wood, although not helped by Reddick’s thick-eared dialogue. Jeremy Haft directs competently, but the gory murders are more nasty than scary, with its big, graveside “gotcha!” (another crib from Carrie) plonked right in the middle and fairly slapdash.
