When a group of friends unleashes an unspeakable evil, they come face to face with fate in a race against death because it's all in the cards... or is it fate?
So the trailer for "Tarot" does its job, selling the sizzle and not the steak; but when you get into the theater, you find they drowned it in ketchup. It's all jump-scares and no actual scares. And even the jump-scares are pretty predictable, all happening right on cue. Meanwhile, our cast of characters are such cardboard cutouts that when they *are "cut out" by the spooky bad guys, you won't miss `em -- you barely got to know them! In fact, all of the stuff needed in this film is skimped on, except they did try for a backstory for our "final girl" — not that it works well, but they tried!
But one thing does work; the spooky bad guys are all based on creepy tarot images, and they look pretty good! Sadly, I think most of the budget went towards these creature effects and great-looking set pieces and not much else. "Tarot" basically boils down to stupid people dying doing stupid things - which is such a horror-movie staple it's cliche, much like most of this movie, right up to its dumb ending and its one shoehorned PG-13-approved F-bomb.
Speaking of bomb, "Tarot" is bombing not only among critics but with the very people it was made for — horror fans who go see these flicks first, looking for a scary good time with a group of friends; even they rated it a 4 out of 10 on Metacritic, and I agree.
I guess it was fate!
Tarot (2024)
MPAA: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hr 32 min
Genres: Horror, Lousy
