Tarot (2024)
May 15, 2024 4:20 AM - Subscribe
When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings, they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death.
This goofy, fun horror movie feels made for summer. It includes jump scares, stereotypes, and tropes around every corner. In this movie, astrology and tarot are combined, bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated into a hybrid that seems to have emerged fully formed from the internet. Based on the 1992 novel Horrorscope.
This goofy, fun horror movie feels made for summer. It includes jump scares, stereotypes, and tropes around every corner. In this movie, astrology and tarot are combined, bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated into a hybrid that seems to have emerged fully formed from the internet. Based on the 1992 novel Horrorscope.
Ok, so it turned out that this movie had a few technical problems.
A) a character draws the card of the Hermit, and is then fated to be killed by the Hermit. So far so good. But what happens is that the Hermit chases the character around, jump scaring him and driving him around like a sheepdog. Which is the exact opposite of what a Hermit does. A Hermit does not rush up to people and get into their personal space. So they could have thought about that scene more.
B) I kept thinking about Joss Whedon's director's commentary on the first season of Buffy, and how it was a challenge for him switching from Movies over to TV, since in TV land the budgets and schedules are *much* tighter, and so you mostly can't have special effects and stunts, and so you just have to imply these effects rather than actually show them. Which is what this movie consistently does. E.g. a character is doing an Exorcist like 360 degree head spin, and they show the actor turning their neck and upper body like 120 degrees to the left (doable! we can all turn our heads like that), and then they cut away, and then they cut back to the actor with their head at like 120 degrees to the right, and its clear that the actor has just turned their head from the left to the right and not, in fact, actually twisted their head all the way around past the 180 degree mark. It's just bad stage craft, it doesn't try to make use of practical effects, or CGI, or any other form of illusion. And everything else is like this, they just imply in the laziest and most transparent way possible that something has happened rather than actually creating that experience. So, congrats to this movie's team for just absolutely phoning it in at every level of this creation. We should all aspire to give ourselves raises by collecting 100% of a paycheck while doing ~30% of the work that is expected from us at our jobs.
posted by Balna Watya at 12:16 AM on May 16 [4 favorites]
A) a character draws the card of the Hermit, and is then fated to be killed by the Hermit. So far so good. But what happens is that the Hermit chases the character around, jump scaring him and driving him around like a sheepdog. Which is the exact opposite of what a Hermit does. A Hermit does not rush up to people and get into their personal space. So they could have thought about that scene more.
B) I kept thinking about Joss Whedon's director's commentary on the first season of Buffy, and how it was a challenge for him switching from Movies over to TV, since in TV land the budgets and schedules are *much* tighter, and so you mostly can't have special effects and stunts, and so you just have to imply these effects rather than actually show them. Which is what this movie consistently does. E.g. a character is doing an Exorcist like 360 degree head spin, and they show the actor turning their neck and upper body like 120 degrees to the left (doable! we can all turn our heads like that), and then they cut away, and then they cut back to the actor with their head at like 120 degrees to the right, and its clear that the actor has just turned their head from the left to the right and not, in fact, actually twisted their head all the way around past the 180 degree mark. It's just bad stage craft, it doesn't try to make use of practical effects, or CGI, or any other form of illusion. And everything else is like this, they just imply in the laziest and most transparent way possible that something has happened rather than actually creating that experience. So, congrats to this movie's team for just absolutely phoning it in at every level of this creation. We should all aspire to give ourselves raises by collecting 100% of a paycheck while doing ~30% of the work that is expected from us at our jobs.
posted by Balna Watya at 12:16 AM on May 16 [4 favorites]
Based on the 1992 novel Horrorscope.
All right, this is next on my reading list. A novel with a title like that (and also apparently a YA horror?) demands immediate attention.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:35 AM on May 17 [1 favorite]
All right, this is next on my reading list. A novel with a title like that (and also apparently a YA horror?) demands immediate attention.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:35 AM on May 17 [1 favorite]
Not sure if/when I will watch the movie, but I did read the book! :)
posted by Literaryhero at 7:19 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
posted by Literaryhero at 7:19 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
Literaryhero, thank you for that!
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:07 AM on May 20
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:07 AM on May 20
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posted by Balna Watya at 9:44 AM on May 15 [1 favorite]