Tarot Review: A Horror That Leaves You Cold

A weekend getaway in the Catskills takes a dark turn for a group of college friends in Tarot. While exploring their rental house, the pals stumble upon an old deck of tarot cards tucked away in a dusty closet. Against the warnings of their mysticism-interested friend Haley, the others convince her to conduct readings for each of them. Little do they know the cards house a sinister secret.

Soon, strange events begin unfolding and members of the group start dying in terrifying ways. Haley realizes their grisly demises connect to the ominous fortunes she foretold. With invisible forces now gunning for the rest of them, the survivors race to unravel the curse before it claims any more victims.

Tarot keeps viewers guessing through this PG-13 blend of slasher scares and supernatural thrills. The film pays homage to classics like Final Destination that use fate and the unknown to ramp up tension. But does it offer its own memorable twists on the formula?

This review takes a closer look at Tarot’s storyline, characters, monster creations, and how it shapeshifts the familiar genre tropes. With a few polished elements like its practical creature designs, Tarot weaves an entertaining spell. However, some sluggish pacing and thin characters get tangled in its web of cliches at times.

Tarot’s Tired Tropes

The premise of Tarot had potential to push boundaries, exploring taboos around fate and freewill through the lens of astrology’s rising pop culture significance. Yet like its monotonous mansion setting, the story trudges predictably down familiar nightmare lanes, neglecting depth or intrigue.

We’re introduced via laborious tarot readings spelling out each friend’s doom—blunted blades that sever suspense at the hilt. Gone is curiosity around how diverse individuals’ stars may align. Instead characters recite generic destinies as cartoony harbingers of linear peril. When the first foretold fate comes to pass, one hopes for rekindled mystery. But each demise fulfils its forecast so exactly further tension dissolves.

Perplexing too how our college cohort coddles contrivance. Despite comprehending themselves cursed, some run headlong into harm. Others moan incessantly over minutiae while kin perish. Only the ethereal enemies emit sense, haunting with intention and purpose the friends lack. One longs for these youths to wrest backagency, if not through will then wit.

A waste, when astrology and fear of the unknown begged deeper introspection. Tarot might have mined millennials’ real obsession with calls for self-actualization, or critiqued blind faith in predetermination. Instead it sacrifices nuance for naked shocks, forfeiting fascination with fate for forgettable formula. With a wiser hand to steer its esoteric elements, Tarot could have transcended tropes to leave lingering impressions under trembling stars. Alas, it settles for following routes more traveled, dimming dreams of its dormant divination.

Tarot’s Untapped Potential

The characters of Tarot represent a missed opportunity. With a genre that relies so heavily on audience investment, the film skims the surface of its friend group without really exploring who they are. We’re given shorthand labels – Haley the astrology enthusiast, Paxton the jokester – but never invited below the surface.

Harriet Slater shoulders the lead burden as Haley, but the character remains ambiguous. Flashbacks hint at trauma from her mother’s passing, fueling tarot interests, yet her reaction to the curse feels rote. Haley serves mostly as exposition vessel, diminishing Slater’s abilities. Mean Girls star Avantika fares similarly as Paige, left in the backdrop when her comedic timing and charisma could have livened scenes. Newcomer Humberly González shows sparks as the sensitive friend, though even her intuition goes mostly unmined.

The missed chance for complexity is compounded by one-note supporting roles. Jacob Batalon shines what light he can as quippy sidekick Paxton, but the character teeters on stereotype. Adain Bradley makes the most of cliché jock Grant, bringing nuance despite thin material. Fleshed-out relationships and personalities could have added layers, increasing stakes as friends fall prey. A bit more substance could transformed static friends into fully-realized people, elevating simple scares into true terror at facing real loss.

Rare standouts hint at untapped potential. Olwen Fouéré commands as occult expert Ms. Astryn, injecting vital intensity and depth. Glimpses into backstories or internal lives could have had ripple effects, keeping viewers invested from start to scarily satisfying finish. With care and development, these characters may have lived long in memory, not faded as quickly as the final credits.

The Creatures of Tarot

While the characters in Tarot may fall flat, the same can’t be said for its monsters. Crafted with an artist’s eye, these figures lurk in the shadows of the mind long after leaving the theater.

We first glimpse them only in glimpses – a racing shape at the edges of frames, hints of sinister faces peering through mist. It’s a subtle touch, letting the imagination fill in unknown terrors. But when we do meet the beasts fully, they impress.

One stands tall as a pale specter, all dripping claws and hungering jaws. You can almost smell the mildew clinging to its rotted cloak. It stalks like a relic dredged from a watery grave. Another crawls on spindly legs, a nightmare blend of man and insect the ancients might’ve known. Twisted flesh seems stitched together from unholy parts.

But the standout is a clown whose chuckle burrows colder than winter’s bite. Face painted in lurid grins, it drags us screaming to darkness with soulless eyes and strength too fluid for any human. Here a legend is born – a visage to haunt playgrounds and travel the globe in nightmares.

It’s a shame more time wasn’t spent in these monsters’ company. They deserved a film of Palpatine-like intellect and menace, not mere set pieces. And while jump scares work in moderation, constant startling douses the drama. Real terror stems from within, from peeling back sanity’s outer layers and glimpsing the nameless things that wait beneath.

Tarot could have plumbed such depths, but prefers surface frights. Its beasts show a glimmer of what may have been – a nightmare realm still screaming to be unleashed. One can only hope their creators will find a story worthy of their twisted visions. For within these creatures lurks true art, and art has a way of finding life anew.

Tarot and the Search for Cinema Gold

Like many horror films before it, Tarot sought to tap into popular trends that proved lucrative at the box office. The Final Destination series and reboots of franchises like Ouija showed there was an appetite for PG-13 frightfests that balanced screams with lighter moments. Tarot aims to mine similar veins, featuring a curse that haunts a group of youths one by one. But whereas those predecessors found a deft hand with characters and inventiveness, Tarot comes across as overly reliant on tropes that dilute any chill.

Final Destination in particular plays with the dicey hand of fate concept in a way that remains unpredictable. Viewers can’t look away, unsure who may be next on death’s list or how their number may be called in each new installment. Tarot, on the other hand, spells out character fates upfront, removing drama. And unlike Ouija’s appealing leads who ground the supernatural, Tarot’s cast feel thinly etched and more like set pieces in a thriller.

Even within the same PG-13 restrictions as Tarot, The Boogeyman showed last year that rating need not mean a lack of scares or imagination. Far from gross-outs, truly unsettling moments came from the power of suggestion. Clever camerawork and an eerie atmosphere built tension without falling back on standard startle tactics.

While not perfect, it proved horror gold can be mined from limitations when films focus on craft over tropes. For Tarot, striking real terror seemed a secondary goal to recycling familiar beats. With a bit more care for characters and creativity, it might have been a game-changer rather than feeling rather doomed from the first reel.

The Wasted Potential of Tarot

Tarot had all the pieces to deliver an unsettling night at the movies. A cursed deck of cards unleashing vengeful spirits upon unsuspecting victims – it’s a premise ripe with possibility. And yet for all its ambitious setup, the film ultimately proves too lazy and derivative to bring that vision to life.

At its best, horror relies as much on the psychological as the physical. It uses its grasp of our most primal fears to burrow under our skin. But Tarot barely scratches the surface, too content placing rote jump scares over crafting a real sense of increasing unease. While the creature designs show flashes of imagination, they’re wasted amid dimly-lit mayhem lacking any atmosphere or intrigue.

Perhaps most disappointingly, the characters remain complete strangers throughout. Their doomed fortunes are spelled out so plainly that suspense crumbles, leaving us unaffected by their fates. With even a bit more care fleshing out lives beyond astrological signposts, their peril could have unsettled on a deeper level.

Potential also lingered unfulfilled in the cast. Skillful performers like Avantika barely register against undeveloped roles. And weaker links in the script are left fully exposed without stronger framework to carry them. At its heart, horror requires we care before it can scare.

Tarot had the chance to craft an eerie midnight maze of a movie. But instead, it chose the well-trodden path of least resistance. Originality and vision fell by the wayside in favor of rehashing genre formulas with little flair. For fans hoping to feel truly unnerved, their time and energy are surely better spent searching for a movie with more life left to tell. This ponderous picture proves far too slight to leave much of a lasting impression.