‘Tarot’ (2024) Review – A Conflicting Summer Horror Affair

Tarot is the type of mainstream horror movie you can throw on with a group of friends, preferably during spooky season, have a few laughs (at both the intentionally and unintentionally funny), maybe jump once or twice, and move on with your lives as soon as the credits roll. This principle translates to theaters; if the trailers have piqued your interest, grab as many friends as are willing and catch the latest screening you possibly can. Spend a stupid amount of money on popcorn, soda, and some unrelated souvenir item, and don’t expect it to knock your socks off. That may be a little stringent, but if you go in on those standards, Tarot will no doubt do the job.

If you couldn’t tell already, it isn’t anything special… but it sure is a lot more interesting than it may seem. Unfortunately, Tarot follows many of the annoying crutches that “Hollywood Horror” tends to lean on; cheap jump-scares spurred by inhumanely loud noises, senseless plot contrivances, and a forced resolution. Who knows how long it’ll take before studios realize that nobody wants to watch a product that feels like it was made on an assembly line, but films keep failing as a result of that negligence.

Yet co-directors Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg (who also co-wrote the screenplay) clearly weren’t cool with Tarot settling in the ditch where all bad horror movies go to burn. There is an exasperated sense of desperation here that works in the film’s favor, though it feels completely out of place at times. Overlapping with the sickly attempts at spooks are unusually gripping bits of design and bouts of conceptual prowess. The camera stays moving, often in the darkness, to hide clever transitions and slick whips and pans.

Really, the whole film looks fantastic. It’s lit with a dripping golden tinge that haunts a great portion of the movie, up until the lights go out and the teal-toned blues take over. There are countless little wins in engaging blocking and other such technicalities, too. One sliding camera movement towards the end specifically may get an actual physical reaction out of you. It’s undeniably impressive, here and there.

The story shares a similar split with the visuals; half well thought-out and half utterly incoherent. Quite simply, the events are structured around a group of college friends discovering an old deck of Tarot cards that, big surprise, just so happen to be haunted. The cards feature ancient “characters”, for lack of a better word, who slowly come to life as things begin to play out. These are solid grounds for a horror romp, teeming with potential for real growth.

Where it works, it really works. A few of these characters are realized in daunting, passionately creepy ways that do justice to the idea as a whole. But, sadly, these instances are outnumbered by lazier conceptions that basically serve as glue to tie the good stuff together. It isn’t the invisible type of glue that just blends in, though; this is that goopy, pasty glue that gets everywhere, doesn’t quite dry right, and ends up leaving the project worse off than it was in pieces. The pieces are still there and worth recognizing, but the entire image is irreversibly tarnished… such is Tarot.

It doesn’t help that the finale fails to push things over the hump by ultimately giving into the platitudes in full, sending things off with a sensible yet sour note of lame familiarity. Still, Tarot has its fair share of moments, enough of which that it can be safely recommended under the right conditions (see above). Though it’s become a loaded term these days, a director’s cut of this film would likely do it justice, if such a thing even exists. What we have is what we have though, and there’s enough “good enough” stuff here to get you through at least one watch.

Tarot is currently playing exclusively in theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvDArsKoTOE]