‘Tarot’ Review: Fun Albeit Forgettable Studio Horror

Studio horror films have picked up an unfortunate reputation over time, especially in the mainstream. The feeling is exasperated by a genre that has always thrived on lower budgets and more concentrated visions; when filmmakers stretch the formula and adhere to standards that were only created to play it safe in the first place, the result is the same every time.

Tarot is unfortunately another victim in a long line of them, even if it has plenty of fun with a cooky premise and cast of hammy characters. The film takes the concept of Tarot cards and reading fortunes and suggests a sinister spirituality behind it. Take that, get a cast of classically stupid horror movie teenagers, and stick them in a mansion with an ancient deck of cards, and you’ve got yourself a movie. 

The set-up sequences in the mansion are really quite strong. They set up multiple plot threads, which are utilized to various degrees of success later on, and make use of some playful camera tricks to lure you into caring for what are otherwise listless characters.

A solid lead performance from Harriet Slater helps this cause. She plays Haley, the only one of the group in-tune with the practice of reading fortunes, and thereby ends up being the only one with a fighting chance of fighting the demons that ensue. Slater makes up where everyone else falters with grounded portrayals of emotion and terror.

The monsters she faces are easily the best part of the film too, and when both parties are on screen, you just may start to have some fun. All the threats are personified representations of figures drawn on the cards hundreds of years ago. To avoid spoilers, we won’t dive into the specifics, but this makes for some standout visuals on more than one occasion.

Directors Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen go the uncanny valley route in bringing these ideas to life, and it pays off in glossy masks and inhuman movements. The film is rarely truly scary, due to an undying commitment to the aforementioned softball mentality, but it does get appropriately creepy at times.

It’s another one on the assembly line of so-so horror movies that studios continue to pump out!

The longer Halberg and Cohen let a scene breathe, the scarier it tends to get. The best of these is towards the climax, though not in it, involving a magic show. It’s easily the best scene in the movie, and is good enough to stand out as memorable on the wider slate of horror releases this year thus far. We’ll leave it at that.

But, as this movie tends to roll, the good simply can’t be left alone. The finale that follows the best bit of the film is shockingly one of the worst; it’s a clearly rushed, miserably forced attempt at sympathy that feels mandated by a mind that didn’t understand the cardinal character arcs up to that point. It’s a tell-tale dichotomy that pretty much perfectly describes this whole thing. Occasionally fun, often misconstrued; a weird form of calculated indifference.

That’s about all there is to Tarot. If you’re a fan of horror specifically, there may be enough fun here to make it worth your while at the movie theater. If you don’t catch it there, it’ll serve just fine as background fodder when you’re looking for something spooky to throw on, or as a group watch with friends. Otherwise, it’s another one on the assembly line of so-so horror movies that studios continue to pump out due to a misplaced fear of upsetting an audience. Of course, the irony is in the result: underperforming film after underperforming film because they don’t want an underperforming film.

Tarot is now playing in cinemas worldwide.

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