Horror movies where a group of friends play a game and get killed one by one is essentially a subgenre by now, including movies like All Fun And Games, The Blackening and the recent Talk To Me. However, not all of them can be as good as Talk To Me, and unfortunately, Tarot is nowhere as fun as its premise promises to be.

Reshuffling

In Tarot, the plot centres on a group of college friends who start dying after having their fortunes read via a mysterious deck of tarot cards. Without spoiling anything, the entire movie pretty much progresses as you’d expect it to, resulting in one of the most generic and boring horror movies I’ve watched recently. Tarot doesn’t do anything to subvert expectations, and it’s not meta or self-aware. That being said, some parts of the movie can be unintentionally funny due to the script being so obvious and on the nose that it’s hard not to giggle a bit even when the movie takes itself too seriously most of the time.

As for the cast, most of them are unmemorable and just your typical group of friends in a horror movie. The two biggest stars of the movie, Jacob Batalon (best known as Peter’s best friend, Ned, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movies) and Avantika Vandanapu (best known for starring in the 2024 Mean Girls reboot) don’t do much to spice it up either, though Batalon’s character can be somewhat funny at times (but mostly annoying, the kind of trope-ish character who talks too much that he annoys the other characters).

The only highlight of Tarot is that some of the designs for the demonic creatures seem to be decent (designed by artist Trevor Henderson, who is known for his creepy designs) and they’re inspired by the arcana of the Tarot cards themselves. Too bad, because we only see them in jump scares. Some horror movies are only remembered for their creepy monsters or demons, and Tarot could have easily been one of them if it had focused more on that aspect.

There is no sense of urgency or atmospheric dread in Tarot, it’s all just jump scare after jump scare. If you’re a horror fan and looking forward to the kills, most of them are unremarkable, which is disappointing because that’s one aspect that the movie could have done a lot better with (though perhaps the PG-13 rating held that back).

Misfortune

Ultimately, Tarot is just another generic and forgettable horror movie that squanders the potential of its premise. With a bland script and boring kills, this movie should just be shuffled back into the deck. In another universe, this movie could have been the Horrorscope we deserved.

FINAL SCORE: 40/100

We attended a press screening of Tarot courtesy of Sony Pictures Malaysia. Tarot premieres in Malaysian cinemas on 1 May 2024.