The New Movie of the Week: Tarot

A group of college aged friends rent a mansion in the Catskills to celebrate Elise’s (Larsen Thompson) birthday. Besides Elise, the group consists of, Haley (Harriet Slater) and Grant (Adain Bradley) who have recently broken up, which is a surprise to the rest of the group and adds some tension to the party; Paxton (Jacob Batalon) the stoner comic relief; Paige (Avantika); Madeline (Humberly Gonzalez) and Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz).    When they realize they have run out of alcohol, they search the house looking for any booze, instead they find the basement which is full of strange antiques, most of them involving astrology.  They find an old wooden box with a very old set of hand painted tarot cards.  Haley, having studied the art of combining Tarot with the astrological signs is asked to do readings of everyone at the party.  At first, she is reluctant as you aren’t supposed to use another person’s Tarot deck, but Elise plays the “it’s my birthday” card and Haley relents.  The next day, the group return to their college campus and one by one they begin to die in ways based on Haley’s readings.  Once they figure this out, they visit Alma (Olwen Fouere) an expert on the deaths that occur directly after a Tarot reading from this particular deck.  She relates the history of the deck of Tarot cards that the group found and its cursed past and informing them that the only way for them to survive is to destroy the cards.  The remaining friends go back to the house and find that the cursed deck can’t be destroyed normally, and they must find a more magical way to accomplish their goal. Who will survive their fate?  Watch and find out.

Tarot is a 2024 supernatural horror film based on the 1992 novel Horrorscope by Nicholas Adams who co wrote the film with Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg who make their directorial debut.  The film was originally slotted for a June 27, 2024 release, but was moved up to May 10, and then moved one more time to May 3^rd.  The film was made for $8 million and has grossed a total of $48 million worldwide.  Critically the movie did not fair as well as financially, with most critics giving it unfavorable reviews and audience polls by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of C- aon an A+ to F scale and the polls from PostTrak gave it a 59% overall positive score.

This film is a standard supernatural horror film which was quite predictable and there weren’t any really big surprises, which isn’t actually a negative.  I went into this movie expecting something and got exactly what I expected, and I enjoyed it.  I liked the plot, the performances were good, the script flowed well, although I did feel there were some spots that felt a bit unnatural and forced.  The production value was good and the special effects accentuated but didn’t detract from the story.  The settings were appropriately atmospheric and creepy and the use of “jump scares” intermixed with overall spookiness was well done.  The plot although predictable I found interesting.  I will say that I didn’t particularly care for Jacob Batalon’s character.  I liked the actor in Spiderman, providing comic relief, but there was just something whiny and unlikeable about him in this film.  In addition, I found it interesting that the character Haley, did not have each character shuffle the cards, as in Tarot, usually the person receiving the reading, needs to imprint on them, but this is a small issue and not sure how many people would even notice.   The rest of the characters all seemed relatable and empathetic with the audience easily being able to relate. This was a fun, predictable movie with some good scares, nice atmosphere and you get exactly what you think you will get!