Title: Tarot.
Genre: Horror.
Director: Spenser Cohen and Anna Helberg
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.
This Horoscope Horror flick, based on a 1990s Young Adult novel has a neat premise. A bunch of kids fooling around with somebody's deck are spooked, or possessed, or something...
Don't mess with the cards, man.
While the concept was indeed inviting the execution left a little to be desired, as did the writing, and some of the editing, and like, the entire production. If predicatable jumpscares and questionable plotlines are your preverbial cup of tea you may be in for a treat. And there's nothing wrong with an earnest attempt in the genre of horror fiction.
Some of my favourite movies fell way short of their original expectations, but Tarot, isn't one of them.
A bunch of kids rent out a spooky old house and, running out of beer, decide to explore beyond a locked door marked KEEP OUT. Inside they happen across a bunch of astrological paraphernalia including a boxed deck of limited edition cursed tarot cards.
The curse goes back to medieval Hungary, we learn much later.
One of the gang naturally knows how to read the cards, and she does so, unitentionally cursing all her friends. There's a Final Destination vibe throughout, with each of the gang cursed by the ancient Hungarian gypsy.
To be fair I thought the prop guy had a good movie. The tarot cards were beautifully hand painted and there was a bunch of neat little gimmicks. A teenager stranded in a subway station is being pursued by the shapeshifting gypsy. He looks down onto a random newspaper under his foot. The headline reads:
YOU DIE TODAY.
Nice.
Another nice touch is that moment your car breaks down on a
bridge, the car windows steam up as an invisible ghostly finger draws a hanged
man on the condensate glass.
Again. A nice touch.
Each victim is killed off in accordance with their readings.
Hanged Man anyone?
Structurally, it was awkward. The exposition comes too late. The gypsy has already made a couple of kills before we realize the nature of her beef. This usually works in most horror movies, but with this film the killings are so weak, and we care not a jot about the victims. No investment has been spent in dialogue and relationships between the characters, so the only way to draw oneself into the plot is to take sides with the devil.
This works with Nightmare on Elm Street. The protagonists in horror movies do not have to be likeable if the villain is. But here the antagonist is all over the preverbial caravan shapeshifting in such a fashion we can't decide if to love or loathe her.
The only actor who gets a pass here is veteran stage performer Olwen Fouere. Her inclusion saved the film while delivering the backstory urgently required to keep the audience watching.
There's also some interesting CGI horror - a magician saws through a wooden box containing the second-to-last-girl-standing.
But by that point we are left wondering if fate had dealt us a bad hand at the cinema.
A character we thought had died reappears as a final insult, and I'll be suprised if the financiers find their palms crossed with silver with this production.
Verdict: 2 stars out of 5.
