Tarot, yes, that Tarot, is a return to form for the board game genre. Tarot, the game, is a little more obscure than most of the popular board games adapted to the big screen. Examples include Ouija, Jumanji and Clue, among others. Nevertheless, Tarot is aimed at the same audience as most of its board game movie contemporaries, with the exception of Battleship, which was targeted at no one, nobody liked it, and it made so much money somehow. The board game genre as a whole has had ungodly success over the last forty years. Check out the worldwide grosses for board game movies. Then take a second to catch your breath…
Battleship – $303,025,485
Ouija (Franchise) – $185,296,017
Clue – $14,643,997
Jumanji (Franchise) – $1,864,246,904
Dungeons & Dragons (Franchise) – $242,155,720
The power of IP man. Now you can see what the suits see. There’s been some good movies in the bunch, there have been some real turkeys in the bunch. Either way, the Monopoly money is flowing. The Monopoly money is slim pickings for Tarot though, with only $10,200,000 earned on opening weekend. Even though that is a moderate success considering the $8,000,000 budget, I’m going to venture a guess the Tarot cinematic universe is going directly to jail and won’t collect $200 dollars for passing Go…
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For those who don’t know. Tarot is a card game. I watched the movie. I looked up the game afterwards. I still don’t know what it is. All I see is Magic: The Gathering for people who are into fortune telling, astrology signs, and horoscopes. I mean absolutely no disrespect. But I just do not understand what Tarot is, even after researching and watching the movie. Good thing for movie goers, it really doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t familiar with Tarot the game. Bonus points if you are familiar though. Congratulations, your reward is a mind numbingly formulaic horror (?) movie…
Tarot is about a group of seven college-aged kids who rent a vacation property in the Catskills to celebrate a member of the group’s birthday. While celebrating, the group finds and plays with a custom Tarot deck, which awakens a deadly spirit which then puts the lives of the group at risk. Oh my. About as simple as it gets, and god***it, I had such a good time. Here’s why…
Hey ChatGPT, write me a horror movie about Tarot the card game targeted at a younger demographic…
I’m not trying to throw any accusations at anyone for any work that may have been done. I’m as pro-writer as it gets. With that said, Tarot was so painstakingly formulaic and predictable that it truly felt like a movie made by an algorithm. I’ve seen all of the scenes in the movie, in other movies. The archetypes of the characters, the structure of the plot, the buildup to the jump scare payoff, rinse and repeat, onto the next victim. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I hated the repetitive nature and the unoriginality of Tarot, but at the same time it was a moderately enjoyable experience once I succumbed to its simplicity. If you’ve seen Ouija (2014), then you saw the blueprint for Tarot. The group in Tarot is led by the prototypical final girl archetype, Haley, played by Harriet Slater, and you guessed it, Haley is a Tarot expert. Haley gives everyone their readings, and yep, those readings come to life…
I’m trying to say this with a straight face. (Deep sigh) To avoid spoilers, I won’t dive into the specifics, but as I’m sure you have already guessed, the spirits of the Tarot game eliminate the kids one by one, until the final standoff at the end. The final standoff was okay, until something happened that made me want to throw my soda at the big screen. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it. Trust me, you’ve seen it before, but it’s one hundred million times sillier and more frustrating than you can imagine. Single handedly sucking every bit of seriousness out of a movie that was already so unserious. By the end, I felt like I had watched the most unserious movie of all time, and a complete waste of ninety minutes. But at the same time, I enjoyed the ninety minutes thoroughly. Mission accomplished? I guess?
To heap some praise, I thought the group of kids were solid enough. Basically, the most cookie cutter group of youngins imaginable. Some I forgot about completely on the drive home. Jacob Batalon, from the recent Spider-Man movies, plays the comic relief archetype, Paxton. While I was amused by Paxton on one hand, the other hand was doing the Arthur fist throughout the entirety of the runtime because the comic relief he was providing was funny at times, but also enormously unserious and way too on the nose. Paxton is a living and breathing horror movie trope in the most frustrating way possible.
The rest of the group play their roles well enough, they are good actors, but like c’mon, they were sheep being led to slaughter, and that’s it. I think sheep being led to slaughter might have more defining characteristics than this group of kids. Other than Haley and another group member, Grant, played by Adain Bradley, there are literally zero defining characteristics to any character in this movie other than the fact that they went to college in Boston, and drove around in Range Rovers, while also renting million-dollar mansions for weekend getaways. Just when you thought the typical horror movie tropes were all used up, the surviving members in an act of desperation to find out why they are abruptly dying (!!!) casually turn to a Tarot expert, Alma Astryn, played by Olwen Fouere, for some help. Since these kids can’t really provide any exposition and move the plot along, bring in the occult expert, found on Google and tracked down in two seconds flat to tell these kids what the hell is going on. That advice, destroy the Tarot card deck. Hm, didn’t need an occult expert to tell you that, I could have crawled through the screen and let them know that was probably the only course of action. Anyway, yeah, I liked one of the scenes with the magician demon. Even though I’ve seen that character design in Insidious, and the set design in Dead Silence, it was still effectively scary and well-executed. The filmmakers must have liked those James Wan movies…
Overall, even though it seems like I hated this movie, believe it or not, I enjoyed it. Yeah, it is nonsensical, unserious, and formulaic. The target audience is most definitely a younger demographic who are looking for some jump scares between TikTok reels. With each jump scare scene being perfectly spaced out throughout, and the plot being as simple as possible, I’d imagine this is the perfect movie for that specific demographic. For anyone looking for a serious attempt at a horror movie, look elsewhere. For anyone looking to turn your brain off and have a little bit of fun, I’d recommend Tarot wholeheartedly and unironically…
Wicked Horror Rating: 5/10
From Sony Pictures, Tarot is playing exclusively in theaters as of May 3, 2024.
