Tarot

Zodiac signs are all fun and games until that one person who takes it seriously shows up and wanna predict your movements because Neptune is in retrograde and you're a Scorpio. I'm not talking about your average girlfriend who has an intermediate-level knowledge of it. I'm talking about those who know the moons, houses, and nodes and have way too many crystals in the house. I will admit I didn't know that Tarot cards and the zodiac were hand and hand. I mean yeah, both are in the horoscope section but then again Slice of Life and Giant Robots are in the anime section. I digress, it's time to get into this Gen Z horror. Tarot is exactly what you think it is. A bunch of kids fucking with the forces of the stars.

(There's Spoilers in this!)

A group of friends rent a mansion in the mountains for a birthday weekend. They found a spooky Hogwarts ass house they rented off of Vrbo I guess. Anyway, it's Elise's birthday. (*White girl "woooo" intensifies*) The friends are all unique, I assure you. Haley(Harriet Slater) is the star of the movie and she just broke up with her boyfriend Grant. Grant(Adain Bradley) is the movie's black dude and ...uh, he's...so anyway moving on. Paxton is the goofy friend because Jacob Batalon got typecasted when he was in Spiderman. Elise(Larsen Thompson) and Paige(Avantika) are the lesbians who...I...okay, moving on. Lucas(Wolfgang Novogratz) is the good-looking guy. Finally, Madeline(Humberly Gonzalez) is the Spanish one. So much character and diversity among these friends. Enough of my sarcasm, the group is bummed out learning about the break up so they start looking around the mansion. Lucas breaks into the basement, YES, he breaks a padded lock so everyone can snoop around the basement for booze and mischief. It's cool. In the creepy ass basement, they found an old box with a deck of tarot cards inside. Lucky for them, Haley knows how to read tarot cards like a pro. Haley at first rejects the idea because using someone else's deck is against the rules. But seeing how they did break into a locked room and this is a horror movie, they do it anyway.

I wanna circle back to this spooky ass mansion. Who booked this and why? There are candles everywhere, who the fuck lit all of them? This place is a fire hazard. But the biggest part, you break into the basement, grab the Sam Raimi edition tarot cards, and said out loud yourself that it's against the rules to use someone else's card. Like I understand it's a horror movie and everyone has a bullseye on their chest but my dude, this is stupid. Why do I then want to sympathize with any of these asshats? I'm not overthinking this too because horror movies rarely give us a person who isn't annoying or stupid as our lead.

So Haley goes through the group of friends stating their zodialogical signs, what they mean and a tarot reading. Elise the Libra got the High Priestess; Madeline the Pisces got the Hanged Man; Paige the Virgo got the Magician; Paxton the Taruras got the Fool. HAHAH! Because he's the comic relief! A bit on the nose movie! Lucas the Capricorn got the Hermit. All is fun and games until it gets to Grant, who's a Leo(REPRESENT!) he gets The Devil card. Of course! This starts a small CW-style argument. Haley who has already broken several rules and a law, decides to read her own horoscope. Haley the Aquarius gets the DEATH CARD! MUHAHAHAHAHAH! So our group of college kids(HA! Sure.) head home and have regular bland lives. While at a gas station, Lucas won 700 bucks from a scratcher, a sign that the tarot reading they got was kind of real. They're ignoring the bad things they heard in the readings. That's how it works. That night, Elise was staying in her dorm building alone while talking to Paige over the phone. She hears noises coming from the attic, and after a few jump scares we see The High Priestess, who throws Elise off a ladder and beats her to death with it. While the police ignores her ladder-shaped bruises they call it an accident. The group of friends are stunned and heartbroken but don't connect it to the tarot cards. Not until Lucas walks into an empty subway station and is chased by loud bangs and a dark void following him. Running away from the darkness he hides in a inactive train and is chased down by The Hermit. In doing so he's hit by an oncoming CGI train.

It's at this point Haley figures out that the tarot reading she gave was telling everyone about themselves, their deaths, and also their lucky numbers! This spooks out everyone except Grant because he's a Leo. Nigga we need hard evidence, a dead body ain't enough. So they look up an expert on the occult and find Alma Astryn. Stop (laughs). It's always someone with a name that sounds like their straight out of a Anna Rice novel. It's never a name like Ted Donahue or Jessica Sanders. No, you have to hear the black lipsticks and eyeliner in the name. As they tell Alma about the cards and the two deaths she figures out the deck belonged to the ASTROLOGER! Well, an astrologer. So this is the story. There was this astrologer who worked for a Hungarian Baron in the 18th century. One day she predicted the Baron's wife would die in childbirth. So when the wife died, the Baron ordered his men to kill the astrologer's daughter. The astrologer then decided to do a reading on the Baron and his friends. She then killed herself, cursing them and anyone else who used her deck. Alma tells them about similar victims of the cards, a group in Mexico City, Woodstock, and London. Alma was a survivor in London because she didn't read her own fate with them. Okay, stop it real quick. So just so happens that they find a survivor of these cards in their city and she is also an expert on the cards. This brings up the biggest mystery in the movie. WHO THE HELL HOUSE WAS THAT!? Did Gomez Addams put this place up on Airbnb? Also, what else was in that basement? The Necronomicon? The Eye of Ra? The episode of "IT Crowd" where Jen and Moss kill Roy? Also in several of these kills you hear music that ironically accompanies what was said in the Tarot card reading and the victim hears it too. So do the monsters listen to modern-day pop music to do this? Whatever, this movie is dumb. I'm dumb for asking questions.

So Alma tells the kids to destroy the desk so they drive back to the mansion. During the drive, the car loses power and shuts down. As everything is looking like it's Madeline's time to die, she freaks out and runs out of the car. In doing so she seals her fate and is killed by the Hanged Man. The best part is after she suffocates from the hanging the monster zips her up and eats her. I didn't know they ate the victims too, but rules don't mean shit in a movie like this. Everyone is shitting their hearts, and Paxton decides to leave despite his reading telling him he shouldn't do so, the rest go to the mansion. Funny part is during this time they ask questions about the basement and the owners of the house. It's funny because we the audience never get answers for any of this. Just an evil book, in an evil-looking house, owned by God knows who. Paxton while back on campus is stalked by the Fool. And like he does EVERYTHING wrong and he's caught in an elevator. Meanwhile, Scooby and the gang make it to the mansion. They find the cards and try to burn them but(*Faked gasp*) the cards aren't burning! Almas, who shows the hell out of nowhere, and helps them. Almas reads herself to draw out the astrologer(I really wished they gave this chick a name). The astrologer kills Alma the same way Jiraiya was killed in Naruto but it's 6 swords in the back instead of 5. The kids run away but Paige gets separated from the group and goes into the basement. While down in the basement she confronts the Magician. And I swear to God this scene goes on for a minute. While hiding from the Magician she hops into a box. I'm going to give you two seconds to think how she's killed. Remember, this is a magician. Give up? Sawed in half but with a big-ass Looney Tunes-style blade. This just leaves Grant and Haley.

Seeing how Grant is a Leo and a Negro, we know the deal. He acts brave and tries to calm down his beautiful Alabastor Queen and talks about the good old days. He is then promptly yoked through a window, leaving Haley by herself screaming as Death chases her through the house. Death ultimately gets her and starts choking her out, that is until Grant shows back up and smacks Death upside the head. ...yeah. Wait, HOW ARE YOU ALIVE! The Devil grabbed and dragged you away. Was he like "Ahhhh, I'm fucking with cha dog. Go save yo white girl Playa." Grant tells Haley to go while he deals with Death, this is because in his reading he was told he would have to face his greatest fear. So...there you go. Haley finishes the reading as the Astrologer, who's a monster now, shows up. Haley deals her the Death card, just like her. So Death is gonna kill both right? Wrong! You see, it's all about letting go of pain. Haley had to see her mom slowly die, but she had to let that pain go while the Astrologer didn't let go of the Baron MURDERING HER FAMILY. That's the most Millennial White Woman 1st World Problems thing to say to a monster. Welp, you should've got therapy bitch! Death kills the Astrologer and the cards burn up and disappear. Grant and Haley survive with two dead bodies and thousands of dollars of damage inside the mansion that Paige rented for the weekend. Don't worry, it gets dumber! Paxton shows up to pick up Grant and Haley. The movie tries to be cute with Haley stopping the credits and asking how was it possible Paxton was still alive. LIKE THAT WAS THE ONLY THING UNBELIEVABLE IN THIS MOVIE! Apparently, right before his death, Paxton's roommate Todd opened up the elevator door and the Fool disappeared. ...The end!

I...I...didn't hate this movie. This movie was dumb, very dumb sometimes. The acting wasn't that great, the few jokes in it weren't funny, the characters weren't interesting and the story was just average. The kills weren't anything to write home about either but creative. The setting, makeup, and a few effects were the best things about this movie. I asked for a Gen Z horror movie and I got it. A mess that only teenagers will like and I kind of respect that. Good to see the youth do the same things we did.

4 out of 10...but I would check it out because this smells like a so-bad it's good classic in about 7 years.