SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
2024's Tarot is operative as a horror film. I mean it's not scary enough to be a classic but it's not too systematic to travel into self-parody either. Tarot's story, well it's as old as dirt. Don't mess with someone else's fortune telling and don't venture where you don't belong. If you do you'll get the hose again (har har). But seriously folks, I went into Tarot with the lowest of expectations, a snicker if you will. Sometimes that can be a rather effective, cinematic half-pie. Natch.
Made on a budget of $8 million and being rather successful at the box office (I never even knew it got released), Tarot reminds you of stuff like Final Destination, Scream, and even A Nightmare on Elm Street. Yeah helmers Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg were obviously doing their homework and well, even copying off of other people's notepads (it's manifest).
Tarot's motifs are as follows: a group of seven friends have to figure out who among them is the would-be killer (check). That same group of friends also have to realize that maybe an otherwise snarky demon might be doing the actual killing (check it). The same group of buds get picked off one by one in rather cowinkdink fashion (check the technique). Finally, there are different ways in which these seven millennials are prone to biting that proverbial dust (Czechoslovakia!). "Paging Jimmy Wong, Jimmy Wong".
Early 2000s death knells aside, Tarot stars Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, and Jacob Batalon, actors who are typical horror flick tropes, making typically bad, horror flick decisions (don't ever climb a ladder into an attic after hearing weird sounds in said attic, ever!). The film, well it's well-directed, well-paced, and the storytelling of confidants unleashing an evil entity via some old-arse playing, stiff papers is in a word, adequate. Howbeit, although Tarot's ending will probably have you doing the old SMH take heed, there have been worse journeys. Drawing "card".
Written by Jesse Burleson
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