Horror films have used anything and everything to scare the bejesus out of audiences for years now. Writers and directors have infused whatever they can into their stories to make them interesting and not cookie-cutters of something else that has come out recently or years before. What they always forget, or maybe they don’t, is that the tropes they’ve used for decades to scare viewers can get old as well. That’s the case here with Tarot, the latest horror film based on an item similar in a vein to Quiji to some extent. Tarot gives it the old college try, no pun intended, but fails to ignore the horror film tropes like so many more that have come before.

A bunch of college-age kids rent a house in the middle of nowhere, where we have heard this before, to hang out and celebrate one of their birthdays. While exploring the house they come across a door that says DON’T ENTER in big letters, so of course they ignore the sign and enter, which leads them to a cellar with a bunch of old stuff in it. Among the items closed behind a pane of glass in a box is a deck of tarot cards. One of the group, Haley (Harriet Slater), says they shouldn’t mess with the cards because they look old, and it’s against the rules to use someone else’s deck. The group disagrees with her, and they proceed to have their horoscope read to them by her since she has done this for years. What happens next is a film full of what you’d expect from this kind of horror movie.

The film is based on Horoscope from writer Nicholas Adams, and he serves as co-writer for the script with the directors Spencer Cohen and Anna Halberg. They did a good job of making me care about these characters, but what they didn’t do was make me scared or concerned about what was going to happen to the group as a whole. This story was very predictable and contrived from the moment the Slater character read the horoscopes of the six other kids. I knew exactly what was going to happen from the first act on. Except for the end of the film, which was ridiculous, so I’m not even going to mention it; besides, it would be a spoiler anyway. I wanted to root for these characters, but I just found myself shaking my head up and down because they were doing such predictable things. I probably could have written a better script than this.

There were a couple of of things besides the kids I cared about, and those were this. First, the movie was set in Boston, Massachusetts, where I originally come from. I love it when movies are set in or near my hometown. Second, the filmmakers used the T what we from Boston called the mass transit system. It’s the soft rail system in Boston. I am a huge fan of mass transit in general. The third thing I thought was good were the incarnations of the tarot cards themselves and the overall villain. She looked menacing and pretty cool looking. Her backstory was interesting as well. Those are the positives, though. There are plenty more negatives than that. I always go into movies with a positive outlook; sometimes, I come out with a negative outlook.

The cast was okay. They weren’t great, but I found myself caring for them. One of them was quite annoying, and  that was Paxton played by Jacob Batalon. He kept talking and wouldn’t shut up. I know that’s his shtick from Disny’s Spiderman films, but it can get old pretty quickly. The rest of the characters I didn’t mind, though. The lead characters played by Slater and Adain Bradley were believable as a couple, and they argued and so forth, which gave them some gravitas as characters. The others were just throwaway characters for me. They did;t stand out as much as the two lead characters and Batalon’s character did. Both in different ways.

There is a psychological nature to this story that, at first glance, would seem very fascinating, but it goes by the wayside because of the script, which is very formulaic and filled with one contrivance after another. The concept of reading horoscopes from Tarot cards was such a great idea for a story and how the horror elements were implemented weren’t as great. They were very obvious. Any horror fan could have figured these things were going to happen the way they happened. It was done so, obviously. I’m a bit sad because I had hoped it wasn’t going to be as bad as it turned out. I should have known when I couldn’t get a screener or screening in advance.  

Tarot has an interesting premise that ties horoscopes and tarot readings together with a terrific horror-based landscape. All the pieces based on the book by Adam’s are there. They just don’t come together in the end due to many contrivance and horror tropes that are overused, and I could see them coming a mile away. I was waiting for something to surprise me, but it didn’t. The incarnations of the tarot cards and the main villain were good-looking as far as the visual effects went. I just wished the story around this concept was better. The cast was fine with Slater as the standout and Batalon as the annoying one channeling Ned from the MCU Spiderman film. I was rooting for this one to be good , but alas, it wasn’t.

2 stars

Dan Skip Allen