54310: Tarot

More than likely, you’ve already seen Tarot, though you might not realize it. According to the producers, Tarot is based on the 1992 novel, Horrorscope, but as far as I can tell it is actually based on just about every mid-budget horror movie of the last 25 years. Here’s the broad strokes of the plot:

A diverse group of attractive young people come together for a celebration at an old mansion in the woods where they discover a cursed artifact and manage to attract the malevolent attentions of an evil force that systematically kills them off in increasingly elaborate set pieces until the final showdown with the final girl.

Not pictured: Final Girl

How many films could that describe from the post-Scream era? At this point it feels like maybe Christopher Booker needs to add this as an appendix to The Seven Basic Plots. This structure is so familiar that it has its own beloved pastiche, The Cabin in the Woods, which lovingly skewered the ur-genre back in 2011. Like The Cabin in the Woods, Tarot is rife with familiar modern horror tropes, such as:

• Friends drinking around a bonfire before the murders start

• Inept police officers who refuse to see a pattern to the killings

• A chubby, goofy, comic relief friend in the group

• Evil clown

• Over-the-top death scenes that make Hannibal seem subtle

• A wise elder who faced the evil once before

• Candles; oh, so many candles

So. Many. Candles.

It’s almost as if the producers, instead of storyboarding, cut and pasted the best scenes from the past 25 years of horror into one tight 90-minute thrill ride, and then scripted around it. Unlike the aforementioned cabin, however, Tarot is happy to mine this vein without winking at you quite so blatantly. And that earnestness is what makes it work.

The script and direction, from first time feature directors Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, treat the subject with great sincerity. The villain gets a backstory and a relatable motivation, as do the unwitting victims/young persons. For example, they give each of the seven kids the spotlight during a tarot reading/emotional exposition scene which not only deftly lays out foreshadowing for each demise, but also highlights what is special about each character and why the rest of the group loves them.

Subtle, it ain’t. But it is effective, and demonstrates the directors’ commitment to fleshing these people out—as much as is possible with seven protagonists in a 90-minute movie. The directors also demonstrate their affection for the audience by not wasting our time (see above re: runtime) with stuff that doesn’t matter. The whole plot takes place over the course of three days/two nights, not counting flashbacks, and everything moves at a pretty zippy pace.

I don’t want to belabor the plot, because I bet you can already plot it out in your head without any help from me. And the plot isn’t why Tarot exists. It is a vector for bloody deaths and chilling scenes that stick with you long after you’ve forgotten the characters’ names. In a way, it’s cinematic comfort food, with story beats and set pieces coming with a clockwork precision that I wish the CTA could emulate.

And while I doubt that Tarot will spawn its own cinematic universe, or even a direct-to-streaming sequel, it has already achieved a sort of immortality as one of the entries in that endless line of disposable yet indispensable horror flicks which ebb and flow into our theaters each year. Does this one break new ground? Not really. But it reminds us that this story, of youth being punished for being young, will be told and retold around bonfires and the flickering half-light of movie houses for the foreseeable future. And if there’s one thing you should expect from a film called Tarot, it’s a little insight into the future.