Review: Tarot (2024)
Tarot – 6%
Reviewer Flickchart Ranking: 5,123 / 5,447
Occult horror is back on the big screen with Tarot. Directed by rookie team Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, it brings the terror of tarot cards to life with a cast of fresh-faced 30-year-olds playing college seniors. The film centers around a group of AirBnBers who decide to trespass upon a “Do Not Enter” sign and discover a treasure trove of astrological artifacts. Instead of a flesh-bound book of the dead, they find an old wooden case with hand-painted, sadistically-interpreted tarot cards. What derivative horrors await our petty criminals?
Our lead, Haley (Harriet Slater), who has recently broken up with her boyfriend and fulfills the casting call of “gives off Emma Stones vibes,” happens to be an expertly self-taught medium. She proceeds to give each member of the group, including herself, a reading that combines the tarot with their astrological sign. There’s also an apparently powerful unification happening (I was personally hoping for a brief seminar on crystal alignment, but to no avail). This portion of the film is reminiscent of 2023’s indie horror breakthrough Talk to Me, but lacks that film’s finesse or suspense. It’s all just a plot mechanism we have to push through, similar to when the scientist shows up to give us pseudo-technical jargon in every sci-fi film.
In a turn of events that seems to affirm every word my evangelical upbringing told me about astrology, the college students are stalked and murdered by a literal manifestation of the macabre tarot characters. The director team lacks the experience or skill in setting up effective jump scares, and also tames the gore to near-PG levels to make an accessible product. Our ostensible 21-year-olds are also essentially sexless, and they party by drinking Sam Adams Classic Lager. What the audience receives is a tame, toothless horror film filled with lifeless, lazily-written tropes. Tarot is an anti-creative amalgamation of better horror products, but it could work well for a youth group video at Wednesday night’s “Dangers of the Occult” service.