“Tarot” (2024) is an adaptation of Nicholas Adams’ book, “Horroscope.” Publisher Daniel Weiss Associates used the author’s name as a penname for the nineties era young adult authors on their payroll, which included John Peel, the actual author of the novel, which was about a group of high school students murdered based on their horoscopes. Directors and writers Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg in their feature debut change the victims into a group of friends from an unnamed Boston college vacationing at a Catskills mansion with a locked basement filled with occult artifacts, which includes a deck of cursed Tarot cards. Hailing from Minnesota, Haley (Harriet Slater, who resembles a young Emma Stone) happens to be an expert in paring tarot readings with horoscope, the most powerful form of divination, as a birthday party trick to entertain her friends despite her reservations. When they return home, gruesome accidental deaths pile up, which does not trouble the police, but puts the group on red alert to determine the cause of their early demise. Can they save themselves? Will you care?
“Tarot” would be more credible if this group was playing one of those cheesy icebreakers to introduce themselves to each other because as individuals, they are forgettable, and as a group, there are devoid of chemistry. Haley and Grant (Adain Bradley, whom I vaguely recognized from “The 100”) just broke up. All their friends are shocked because they inexplicably thought Haley and Grant would be together forever. The status of their relationship provides the movie’s momentum and determines the overall health of the group. The goal is for the two to get back together, and it is an understatement to say that no one outside of the film is invested in them, especially considering it is not even featured in the trailers. Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz), a five second rule enthusiast, and Madeline (Humberly Gonzalez), who should have followed her grandma’s admonishment about “devil shit,” are in the early stages of dating. Paige (Avantika, who is the second most famous actor from appearing in “Mean Girls”), who organized the getaway, and birthday girl, Elise (Larsen Thompson), are a solid couple. Paxton (Jacob Batalon, who is the most famous of the cast from appearing in the MCU’s “Spider-Man” franchise) provides the comedic relief.
While no one is asking for gratuitous sexual scenarios, this group of photogenic people are the most chaste creatures on earth with no money, but terrific accommodations. Elise lives in a spacious dorm or sorority while Paige spends the night alone in her capacious open concept loft. Instead, they talk for hours on the phone. This scenario may be the only time in history that a lesbian couple could be reasonably rationalized as just friends. Lucas and Madeline hug goodbye with lots of space for Jesus. A peck on the cheek would be too risqué. When Grant and Haley begin to reconcile, they may as well shake hands. There was more sexual tension with the cast of “Abigail” (2024).
It also does not help that the film’s mythology is dense though probably watered down to painful levels for people who are astrology and occult adherents. Even if one was taking notes and paying close attention to the original reading, it would still be difficult to associate any of these interchangeable, forgettable characters with their reading. The readings provide a road map for the rest of the movie so if you are not the kind of person who can just go along with the premise while losing details, then maybe “Tarot” is for you. If you are a detail-oriented person, it is going to be a frustrating slog, and you will give up on investing in the characters or their fortunes. The minor baddies are The High Priestess (Lucy Ridley), The Hermit (James Swanton), The Hanged Man (Felix Leech), The Magician (James Swanton), The Fool (Felix Leech), The Devil (Joss Carter) and Death (Cavin Cornwall). Each corresponds with a card given to a character, so each baddie has a character to torment and kill. The personification of each minor villain is interchangeable in aesthetic and generally love to screech. The High Priestess was more brutal than advertised. The most memorable sequence is the Magician. The Hermit would make a great cat herder and uses converging darkness to trap his prey. The Hanged Man looks like he would belong in “Salem’s Lot.” The Devil, Death and The Fool are anti-climactic and feel a bit generic. They could appear in another horror movie without missing a beat, and that is not a good look, but they are more memorable than their intended prey.
The backstory of the overarching villain is more interesting though very tropey and cheesy. Alma (Olwen Fouere) is an expert in this cursed object and has been trying to destroy it for decades. Fouere, who is probably most recognizable for her role in “The Northman” (2022) or “Mandy” (2018), is probably the oldest actor in the cast and riveting in her brief appearance. Unfortunately, she is underutilized and receives the short shrift treatment. Fuere’s appearance makes Ellen Burstyn’s role in “The Exorcist: Believer” (2023) feel like a star billing. Alma reveals a sympathetic nineteenth century Hungarian big bad only known as The Astrologer (Suncca Milanovic). If some sunny, twenty-first century adolescent American young woman tried to console me or go toe-to-toe with me after centuries of handling privileged misogyny, going full chaotic evil and being an expert in the dark arts, she would not live to see another day.
“Tarot” is an aggravating film because it feels crafted to appeal to the broadest commercial audience; thus no one. I saw it during its likely final week in theaters, a tepid three week run. It makes a mild effort to appear as if it was shot in Boston. One killing occurs in Haymarket. The drive between Boston and the Catskills is easily accomplished, not three hours. Movies can reinvent geography to further a storyline. In “The Holdovers” (2023), the interior of a movie theatre belongs to Somerville Theater located in Davis Square, but the exterior belongs to the Orpheum Theater. The ideal theater is an aggregate of two actual locations, dissonant for people who know better, but the combination somehow makes the location more of an embodiment of Massachusetts though still artificial and cinematically crafted. Cohen and Hallberg’s cinematic inventions flatten the world instead of enhancing it. They chose to set it in Boston, and they never had to. They could have created a fictional town with invented distances, but the film suffers a lack of creativity to become a pure product of imagination. They also lack the rigor to understand and love a place or its people to recreate and fictionalize it in a convincing way that makes it more of its true self instead of a diminishing it.
The mixture of fact and faction makes “Tarot” a lukewarm film that will satisfy no one. It is at its best and most unique when depicting the entertainment that interests the masses like true crime podcasts or portrays how information retrieved from a laptop is inexplicably more credible than if the information was gathered from a cell phone even though both devices use the same Internet and search engines. Unfortunately the flick flees from any material which may actually resonate with its audience.
