Tarot ignores its most obvious thematic throughline for tired tropes.
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It's kind of wild that this movie hasn't been made before. Sure tarot cards and tarot reading are mostly used as an enhancement to a lot of horror movies (instead of being the main event), but the idea behind it fits nicely into the "does this actually have power or does this only the power that we put on it?" It's also exactly the kind of thing that a group of young people would do for fun to scare each other without believing consequences are around the corner. So get some fun actors and let's make this thing. No wait, not like that!
The Setup
The film follows a group of friends who are looking to hang out and bond in a cabin for a birthday celebration. When tensions begin to rise, the group suggests breaking that tension by having their friend Haley give everyone tarot card readings. But when the tarot readings begin to come true in lethal fashion, the remaining friends must band together to find out why and how this tarot deck is picking them off before their fates are sealed...
Straight out the gate I'll say that I didn't expect this movie to be great. It had low budget studio movie cashing in on a horror movie buzzword all over it, including the PG-13 rating and a cast where our most recognizable actor is Spider-Man: No Way Home's Jacob Batalon adding another solid comic relief character to his resume. So the fact that these folks are all college kids who act like college kids blended with a number of creepy sequences that feel like a trippy less-gross version of the Final Destination goes a long way.
But also...why is this movie rejecting the most obvious thematic throughline at its disposal?
As I've alluded to in other reviews, a lot of modern horror movies are centered around women having to face their worst fears or handle their most detrimental emotions (i.e. grief) head on. Which makes a lot of sense for something paranormal because however this things works, it's likely going to poke at your weak spots before everything wraps up.
But that's not what tarot, at least as its understood in popular culture, is about. Tarot in the popular lexicon is about fate. Knowing your fate. Being afraid of your fate. Fighting your fate. So a tarot deck that only dooms those who have their fortune and fate red is a solid idea, especially for a bunch of college kids that might be trying to figure out who they are and they want to do with their lives.
Sadly, Tarot goes for option A: recovering from trauma. Our lead, and our tarot reader Haley, is both separated from her skeptical boyfriend and very evidently has not processed the early passing of her mother due to illness. And while I sighed when the tragic backstory was introduced, I saw a way that it could work.
One of the underdiscussed things about grief and depression is that it can mentally reinforce all of your worst fears and thoughts about yourself. If you're religious you might view the loss of a parent as a punishment. Or if said parent dies from an illness with any semblance of a genetic component, you might deathly afraid of the same illness shortening your life. It can feel...inescapable. Fated. So maybe we...show these college kids a bunch of ugly futures they want to avoid...but seem unable to buck. And sure, one or two of them could be lethal, but it would require taking ownership of your own life to truly win against this thing (which could involve either diving into the grief or pushing past your biggest hurdles).
Lots of opportunity there. Instead the script leans on cliches from other franchises and kinds of movies. The death scenes all play out like sequences from the Final Destination franchise with some vague callback to the card. The cards themselves are revealed to be a "cursed" deck which removes the notion of this being all in anyone's head. And the card Haley needs to conquer is...death. And it's also revealed that she kept using the tarot cards hoping to get a reading besides her mother passing...and y'all are still rejecting the fate idea? Goodness.
Admittedly, I'm not expecting everyone to expect that "the Tarot movie should be about fate," something like Ouija boards or Tarot cards are springboards for bigger ideas (if done well). But if you feel like there's tension or hook that's missing, that might be it.
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