TAMARA may or may not be obscure enough to qualify for Slasher Search, but it’s harder to define now that I’m doing 21st century movies. Its hook is that it’s from Jeffrey Reddick, writer of FINAL DESTINATION. Apparently it had an unprofitable theatrical release in 2005, a time of terrible fonts and faux-distressed poster art. I recognized the cover from the video store, but only when I found it on Tubi did I wonder what its deal was and click on it.
The part that piqued my curiosity is that the title character is played by former Janet Jackson backup dancer Jenna Dewan a year before she starred in the first STEP UP movie. Tamara is, as described in the IMDb plot summary, “an unattractive girl who is picked on by her peers,” and it plays like kind of a CARRIE ripoff for a while. She’s a shy, awkward girl, is mercilessly bullied by the (cartoonishly obnoxious) popular kids, and isn’t helped by a crushingly miserable home life with a terrible single parent. In her case it’s her dad (Chris Sigurdson) who’s still around, and he’s a sleazy, molesty drunk. And instead of going home and being made to pray to Jesus, she secretly practices witchcraft. (read the rest of this shit…)
BROTHERHOOD OF DEATH is one of those low budget exploitation movies that promises a seemingly can’t-lose premise and then doesn’t much deliver on it. Oh well, it’s still kinda fun. With the tagline “Watch the brothers stick it to the Klan!,” it tells the story of a group of black friends (some of them played by members of the Washington Redskins, I guess) who go off to Vietnam, and become Special Forces badasses. When they get back home they discover that not much has changed. The Klan are terrorizing and raping black people and the police aren’t much help because… well, because the police here 
