My quick rating – 3.7/10. I have no problem with horror films that ask me to set aside my skepticism. Tarot Curse seems to invite me to leave mine parked beside the tour bus even before the title sequence finishes.
The film kicks off on a surprisingly fun note, with some poor guy being stalked by an unseen presence before meeting a quick and nasty end. There’s a stab, some solid tension, and then a wonderfully grim practical effect involving a bowling ball that immediately lets you know what kind of movie this wants to be. It’s bloody, creative, and just campy enough to get a smile out of horror fans. If nothing else, the opening promises a goofy good time.
Then we hit the classic horror road trip setup: a group of students heading to New Orleans for Tara’s (Lauren Chanel) birthday. Naturally, they all seem to barely tolerate one another, which is always the cinematic signal that half the cast exists solely to be fed into the meat grinder. Apparently, they’re high school kids, though they seem to think they are well into their 20s. In true genre fashion, they follow some random skull-faced stranger because that apparently screams “safe and fun adventure.” Horror characters continue to prove that basic survival instincts are optional, and that is why we love it.
Once the group ends up at the old blind tarot card reader’s place, you can already hear the death clock start ticking. She performs some mysterious ritual, blows dust in their faces like she’s seasoning a roast, and sends them home with conveniently fuzzy memories of the weekend. Not that they seem to care.
Back at school, things quickly get hairy. And yes, that pun is absolutely deserved considering the first major kill. Two of them die almost immediately, and the remaining survivors somehow still refuse to connect the dots. At a certain point, when your friends are being gruesomely picked off in ways that match cursed tarot readings, maybe it’s time to stop being the “I don’t believe in this stuff” character and start being the “let’s leave town immediately” character.
This is where Tarot Curse really struggles. The premise actually has potential, but the script never does enough with it. The mythology behind the tarot woman, the curse, and the “why” behind any of this is left so thin it feels unfinished rather than mysterious. Sometimes ambiguity works in horror. Here, it just comes off as lazy writing.
The acting doesn’t help much either. It’s not quite enough to be laughably bad, but it’s utterly predictable and one-dimensional, and the characters are lacking any real personality. The one character who may be worth pulling for would have to be Quinn (Evelyn Kim), simply because she’s the only one who appears to be trying to stay alive.
That said, there is still plenty of good direction from Jason Winn, and the practical gore effects are clearly why we are here. Unfortunately, there must be more to a movie than just splatter effects. Well, not a hell of a lot more, but give us something. Mix in an absolutely abysmal ending that fizzles out, and Tarot Curse ends up as a forgettable horror flick that had the cards stacked against it from the start.
