Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Tarot’ on Netflix, A Quickie Horror Movie About Messing With The Dark Side Of Fate 

In Tarot, now streaming on Netflix, a group of college friends pull a FAAFO on a creepy box of tarot cards, which means it’s not long before they’re all being stalked by supernatural evil. (Hmm, maybe there actually was a reason why that cellar door was locked, with a “Keep Out” sign posted.) Written and directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, Tarot is based on Horrorscope, Nicholas Adams’ 1992 novel with a much catchier title; starring here as the fuck around/find out friends are Harriet Slater (Belgravia), Avantika (the 2024 Mean Girls), Larsen Thompson (The Midnight Club), Humberly González, Adain Bradley, Wolfgang Novogratz (Feel the Beat), and – he also receives the “and” treatment in the credits – Spider-Man and Avengers supporting player Jacob Batalon.

TAROT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: In a musty, closed-up rental mansion deep in the Catskill Mountains, Haley (Slater), Grant (Bradley), Madeline (González), Lucas (Novogratz), Paige (Avantika), Elise (Thompson), and Paxton (Batalon), a loudmouth vaper, true crime enthusiast, and the group’s comic relief, are enjoying a weekend away from their studies at an unnamed college in an unnamed Northeast city. To the pals’ surprise, Haley and Grant have just split up. But Paige and Elise are going strong, there’s an emerging spark between Lucas and Madeline, and Paxton is around to keep everyone cutting up. When the beer runs out, it’s time to explore the house, and what do they find but a locked door – no problem, we’ll just break it down – and a cobwebby basement packed with oddments. “That looks like a divination cloth,” Haley observes. “This is all old astrological stuff.”

It’s Paxton’s discovery that proves the most significant. A simple wooden box with the signs of the Zodiac carved in its lid, it’s packed with hand-painted cards of a type not recognized by self-taught Tarot expert Haley. (The artwork depicting traditional Tarot characters like The Fool, The Magician, and The Hanged Man has the quality of a Francis Bacon painting done up in twisted cartooning.) Of course the group clamors for Haley to read their horoscopes, and of course she hesitates – combining Tarot with astrology is risky, and you’re not supposed to use somebody else’s deck – and of course, once the friends return to their daily lives, the Major Arcana cards closest to each of their character traits start coming around to stalk and kill them. 

“No matter how much it sucks, you can’t change fate.” Haley has emotional cause to believe in this mantra. But that doesn’t make it any easier to cope when her friends start dying one by one. The cops are worthless and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else on this campus, so the group sources Alma Astrom (Olwen Fouéré) from her website. Can the discredited but wise astrologist help them figure out what’s going on, and how to break the curse that’s befallen them before it’s too late and the High Priestess, The Devil – and the old Death card itself – come for them?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Tarot is a good reminder of how the death blows in the Final Destination films were way more enjoyably grisly than its own. And if you’re looking to spin up a fright fest with a few fresh recent horror titles, there’s The Watchers, Abigail, and especially The First Omen, which is legitimately scary and well worth a stream. 

Performance Worth Watching: Well, of the little group of fated friends, Haley has the most to do, and Harriet Slater gives her a streak of quiet regret that’s eventually cut with a healthy dose of final girl energy. Slater’s staying in the horror game – she’s also in the upcoming exorcism riff True Haunting. Are we witnessing the creation of a new scream queen?

Memorable Dialogue: “There’s a lot of ways to do readings,” Haley tells her friends, “but astrology and tarot are intimately connected. If you use them together, they’re a really powerful combination for forecasting.” And how.

Sex and Skin: None. When we meet the main couple, they’re in a breakup, and the other significant relationship in the friend group doesn’t really get a chance to blossom. You know, because of those evil tarot cards…

Our Take: Tarot is quick. Wisely, it spends only as much time as is required to establish the dynamic of its central friend group before supernatural forces reach out from the dark side of fate to start dropping crawl space ladders on people’s necks. As the kills pile up, we’re able to draw a clean line back to the pals’ original horoscopes, and see what their assailants are: the physical manifestations of what the cards knew them to be. Madeline’s reading urged her not to run from her problems, Paxton embodies the qualities of The Fool, and for Haley, it’s the same as it was since she first started reading cards: “Love’s gonna be the death of me.” Figure in the arrival of white-haired Alma for a folkloric informational download, and we became intrigued with how Tarot wished to connect its deadly cards in the present with a long and winding string of violence throughout the past. 

The issue here is that the film is too hesitant. Maybe that’s because it’s trying to keep that PG-13 rating – the better to juice box office numbers with groups of moviegoers similar to the one represented in the film – but for whatever reason, Tarot never goes far enough with its sufficiently dark premise. You get a character saying classic things like “Very funny guys! If you’re messing me with again..” before meeting an end that doesn’t really satisfy, since the attacking evil largely stays in the shadows. Repeat this a few times, and before you know it, Tarot’s in its final moments, without much of a satisfyingly bloody or freaky payoff. At least, when we can catch a glimpse, the card representatives are appropriately shudder-inducing. 

Our Call: Tarot is a STREAM IT, but don’t expect to be jump scared into your ceiling or anything. Our recommendation is more for the stranger elements of its backstory, and matching each Major Arcana with its corresponding real-world mayhem.  

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.