Tarot Review: Decaffeinated Terror in Jacob Batalon’s Debut

In recent years, the traditional horror trope of cursed objects has begun to recur. Especially thanks to the saga Spell, which turned the Warrens’ collection of haunted treasures into an attraction in the popular franchise. Moreover, dedicating an entire film to revisiting the history and horrors that each of them hides. Some of this research, almost folkloric, forms part of the book’s plot. Tarot, whose script brings the embodiment of evil into a sinister card game. Much more than that, it transforms everything connected with its reading, on a horrifying map of bloody and brutal deaths.

Based on the book Horror (1992) by Nicholas Adams, the story follows Paxton (Jacob Batalon, from the trilogy Spider-Man Marvel), a fan of practical jokes among a group of students. They all decide to take a short vacation in a rather empty and mysterious house to celebrate the birthday of one of them. Directing duo Spencer Cohen and Anna Halberg, who also co-write the screenplay, take a simple approach to creating atmosphere through sharp shots and dark spaces. But this is one of the few concessions to cliché that the film allows itself. In fact, one of its most amazing points is to put in real effort. for creating an original story, predictable by necessity.

There are not many secrets about what will happen when visitors to a mysterious house discover a card game in a locked room. Tarot in a wooden box. Much more when they insist on shuffling it and guessing in the future. But what starts out as a joke – which the film manages between laughs and a cynical atmosphere – soon turns into a series of interconnected horrors. In particular, they act as a game of cat and mouse between the supernatural and the victims.

Formula used in Tarot

Last year, Tell me summed up the Internet’s obsession with recording, discussing, and displaying supposed paranormal activity. Tarot It’s not, but it explores the same themes. Especially when each of the predictions of the main characters they do to each other thanks to the deck, and they end up being particularly effective ways to die.

Reminds me of a saga Final destinationbut closer to the city and home tone Insidious, the tape combines several elements well and in most cases firmly. On the one hand, the way fear is understood today and how it causes a completely new reaction to inexplicable events. The other extreme is like Tarot He combines the paranoid idea of ​​immediate evil into a series of events apparently the result of chance.

A similar mixture works, and quite easily, within the first hour. In fact, the best of Tarot, is how it even manages to recapture the influence of classic horror cinema to present its situation. What would happen if exaggerated, sometimes ridiculous, and always grim predictions about magical and mysterious objects came true? This premise relates to the idea that the paranormal can be a journey into increasingly darker situations. They all come from the same nucleus. On this occasion, a card game with a long, creepy history.

Good and Bad Decisions in Tarot

The film progresses well as it connects the successive deaths – and seemingly random ones – of the convicted characters to tell the behind-the-scenes story. This is: what is hidden behind the curse that the deck carries. Just as much as this fate of a self-fulfilling prophecy is connected with the inexplicable. On this occasion, Tarot draws on the resource of 1990 films in which graphic deaths symbolized something else. In this case, each of the symbols of the fortune-telling game becomes a trace and clues to follow to understand death. And also the violence and judgment that a group of friends will have to face.

However, in the second half Tarot loses momentum in its ability to reverse its plot, a complex web of interconnected deaths. This is despite the fact that Jacob Batalon tries his best to be both funny and generic, taking all the misery to an unpredictable place. But the plot lacks the ability to exploit its own atmosphere and, of course, ends up being a bunch of clichés.

The less flat and dated visual section is also unfortunate. From houses with a gothic spirit, like papier-mâché, to the general appearance of deaths and even letters. IN Tarot There are good ideas, but none of them are used enough to be as interesting as what they promise. By the end, which of course announces the sequel, the film struggles with its weaknesses. At the same time, a hint of a mystery that is just beginning. But the viewer is probably not at all interested in following the line of fate set by the film.