Tarot (2024) Review!!!

Synopsis – When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death.

My Take – Tell me if you have heard this one before: A group of college friends indulge themselves in a familiar game in a creepy house with an excuse to relax and have fun, only to soon find themselves getting picked off one by one. Facing gruesome deaths by a vengeful entity and unable to avoid their fate, they seek out a survivor of the haunting experience, who delivers exposition and decides to help the surviving ones to make one last stand.

This synopsis pretty much sums up almost every PG-13 teen horror film released in the past 3-4 decades, with their own twists thrown in to make things interesting or not.

Unfortunately, the latter is the case for this one, which despite promising to be a breath of fresh air in the horror genre by bringing with it an intriguing concept that banks on tarot cards, one of the oldest tools used in witchcraft and the occult, ends up being a dreary, predictable, formulaic and dull watch.

Written and directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg (in their feature film directorial debuts), the film, loosely based on a 1992 novel called Horrorscope by Nicholas Adams, is hindered by its own limitations, resulting in an experience that falls short of expectations.

Mainly, as it seems perpetually uncertain about whether it should play its thinly conceived premise for laughs, or actually pursue real scares, but winds up doing neither, instead stumbling around for its surprisingly sluggish 92-minute runtime.

Sure, some inventive kills are present, but the frights wear thin due to a lack of surprises and easily predictable scares. By choosing to stay in its comfort zone and not risk at all beyond familiar limits, it ends up confined to mediocrity, becoming just another generic horror title and probably one of the single most repulsive studio films we’ll probably get all year.

The story follows a group of friends – Haley (Harriet Slater), Grant (Adain Bradley), Paxton (Jacob Batalon), Paige (Avantika), Madeline (Humberly González), Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz), and Elise (Larsen Thompson) – who rent a mansion in the Catskills for Elise’s birthday. With tension in the group following Haley and Grant’s recent breakup affecting their trip, they decide to distract themselves by scouring their rental for booze.

Eventually, the group breaks into a room despite being marked to KEEP OUT, where instead of alcohol they discover a dusty collection of occult trinkets, the centerpiece of which is a deck of hand-painted tarot cards in a wooden box. An amateur student of astrology, Haley warns them off toying with somebody else’s cards, but Elise convinces her to do readings for each member of the group.

It seems like harmless fun as she dishes out about everyone’s personalities and futures, and the next morning, they all go back home. But slowly, all the predictions start coming true, in lethal ways and the group members start getting killed off in ways the horoscope predicted.

The concept isn’t a bad one, and directors Cohen and Halberg do get in some clever moments. But there are just too many elements that ultimately hinder the film’s execution.

Starting with how little care and build-up is given to the unleashing of a vengeful, murderous spirit. Haley and her friends aren’t exactly recklessly tampering with forces beyond their understanding, venturing into the unknown, or succumbing to a momentary moral lapse; the worst thing they do is jimmy open a locked closet and look at some cards.

The film doesn’t bother about individual or interpersonal character work as arcs and characterization are non-existent. When it comes to horror, it doesn’t do well either. Outside of jump scares and unsettling deaths, though, the film doesn’t offer much by way of frights. The scares are easy to predict, telegraphed well ahead of time, and with the film settling into a rhythm with each death, there are no surprises.

Each character is haunted by the specific tarot personality that landed at the center of their reading, which grants the opportunity for creative costuming and makeup. With the Fool being a standout, in addition to looking genuinely creepy.

Had the film leaned into them individually, it might’ve been a more exciting watch. Indeed, there are times, particularly at the beginning and the very end, where it seems like directors Cohen and Halberg understand the absurdity of their premise, and are leaning toward making an actual horror comedy.

Unfortunately, the film winds up taking itself just seriously enough to unleash an initially cool-looking but mostly standard-issue shapeshifter-ghost with the usual repertoire of clicks, skitters, howls, and sudden rushes.

And in the final moments it truly reveals its wasted potential. The revelation of the origin of the cursed deck and the confrontation with the vengeful spirit are intriguing, but the way the characters deal with this situation seems unconvincing and even frustrating. The ending, in particular, feels forced and unsatisfactory, almost reminiscent of a parody rather than a genuinely tense and frightening moment.

Performance wise, Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, Wolfgang Novogratz, Humberly González, Larsen Thompson, and Olwen Fouéré are decent enough, while Jacob Batalon and Avantika Vandanapu, being the most recognizable of the group, manage to stand out. On the whole, ‘Tarot’ is a lackluster horror marred by thin characterizations, a dull plot, and a lack of major scares.