Why Tara From Into The Dark: Tentacles Looks So Familiar

Consider, if you will, Into the Dark, Blumhouse and Hulu's collaborative anthology horror series. So far, it has already given viewers a glimpse into the dark and twisted psyches of the likes of Psyche's James Roday and Carl Foster from Super Troopers. 2021's Valentine's Day offering is Tentacle, the story of a young couple that enters a relationship and gets more flailing, boneless limbs than they could have bargained for.

The story's leading lady is Tara, a scarred and mysterious woman whose presence in the life of her boyfriend Grant seems to be the cause of his life's horrifying new developments. And while Grant might know her by the pet name "my sweet betentacled sugar booger," audiences might recognize her by another name — specifically, Dana Drori.

Drori has been tearing up the acting scene like a tentacle tearing up a smaller, weaker tentacle in recent years, but you might not be able to put your tentacle on exactly why she seems familiar. Let's take a look at some of her memorable roles, from unwilling organ donor to third point in a Zoë Kravitz love triangle.

Imagine, if you can, a man whose teenage daughter is stolen away on a trip to the exotic foreign land of France. Little do the kidnappers suspect that they have abducted the daughter of a post-Phantom Menace Liam Neeson character, the kind that's never met a problem he couldn't punch in the throat. More than that, he's the sort of guy that inspires not only two sequels in which people make off with his family members, but a prequel series about other people being disappeared by international scofflaws and ragamuffins.

2017's Taken TV series, which saw Vikings' Clive Standen in the role that first acquainted audiences with Liam Neeson's particular set of skills, only lasted for 26 episodes when it aired on NBC. But for one brief moment in the show's second season, titled "ACGT," Dana Drori had a dramatic spotlight cast upon her when she played Elizabeth Warner. Like so many distressing damsels before her, the 17-year-old is saved by series protagonist Bryan Mills, this time from organ traffickers whose hungry eyes have fallen on the poor young woman's supple insides. Drori even gets to say "clear" while wielding a defibrillator, the highest honor a television actor can hope to achieve.

Visualize, if you're able, a disinterested record store proprietor named Rob, hip-deep in ennui and Beta Band LPs. They live their life in listicle format, counting down their top five everythings in terribly endearing fourth wall-breaking monologues. First introduced in the 1995 novel High Fidelity as a 35-year-old Londoner, Rob would go on to metamorphose into John Cusack for the 2000 feature film adaptation, Will Chase in the 2006 Broadway musical, and most recently, Zoë Kravitz in the 2020 Hulu series.

Kravitz's take on Rob, like all the Robs that came before, had experienced a slew of heartbreaks. The most recent of these came courtesy of one Russell "Mac" McCormack, whose coincidental reappearance in her life sends the protagonist into a spiral of self reflection. Complicating matters is the revelation that Mac has proposed to a young woman named Lily, played by none other than Dana Drori in the seventh and tenth episodes, "Me Time" and the series finale "The Other Side of the Rock." Unfortunately, High Fidelity got the axe after a single season, which remains one of our top five disappointments.

Conceptualize, if you must, the Blumhouse stable of horror films, running the gamut from Jordan Peele's Get Out to Christopher Landon's Happy Death Day. Towards the latter end of the spectrum lies Freaky, the 2020 reimagining of the beloved Freaky Friday series of books by Mary Rodgers.

Here, Drori plays Charlene Kessler, the law enforcement officer sibling of the story's protagonist, Millie. When Millie trades bodies with a deranged serial killer, Charlene finds herself stuck in the middle of a classic body swap switcheroo, this time with cursed knives and table saw disembowelments. Thanks to her cunning and acumen, Drori's character manages to accomplish what even Anne Heche never could: surviving until the end of a movie where Vince Vaughn stabs people.

Freaky topped the box office when it first hit theaters, and marked one of the high points for Blumhouse's comedic horror library. While no official announcements have been made, Jason Blum expressed excitement at the idea of a sequel in an interview with Inverse, though the fact that a panicked Vince Vaughn was seen pounding the window and screaming "I'm the real Jason Blum!" may indicate a complicated development process.