THE BASIC RULES COULD HAVE SAVED THEM IN "TAROT"!

 IS THIS TERRIBLE SCRIPT SALVAGABLE? -MY FIRST NEGATIVE REVIEW

CAN TAROT AND HOROSCOPE MERGE?:

Meh.

The only evident connection between the two works is the word Horoscope appears in the film. In the loosest possible way. While the Horoscope Tarot spread does exist, it isn’t common. There are thousands of spreads to explore. It certainly doesn’t make the readings more accurate or dangerously powerful. Exposition is a delicate process. Overdone, it becomes a dreaded infodump. Underdone, the lack of information leaves the audience/reader confused. Then, there’s the Tarot script, which seems like the writers loaded the scene in Chat GTP asking for a spooky tarot read, but the computer doesn’t understand the difference between Tarot and Horoscope. So, it merges the two in the clumsiest way possible. 

“I use the deck to read the stars.”

I'm sorry. What? That tells us nothing.

She says what she does, but her performance of the reads says something differently. Her reads are based on what she knows about each querent. Since all participants are part of a close inner circle, it stands to reason that she’s not reading the cards at all. She’s reading the people. 

How do I know that? Because that is all Tarot is. I have been a student of Tarot for over five years. Not because I believe in it, but because I am committed to understanding how it works. Here is what I know: Tarot has been misused and misappropriated in every film and tv show where I’ve ever seen it included. Including this one, the film called Tarot. Most screenwriters use Tarot as a plot device: foreshadow through fortune telling. It’s lazy writing, and never before have I seen lazier writing than the tarot-reading scene in this film. 

Real tarot is not designed to tell the future. It doesn’t even answer questions. It reads people (their turmoil, struggles, and questions) and guides them in the right direction (through insight and advice). That in mind, let’s assume that Haley Martin is full of it, and her reads are as legit as the claim that this film is based on a book with zero supernatural qualities. (Horrorscope is a crime thriller, NOT a supernatural horror.)

Why, then, does the demon in the deck start to kill her friends? Because it’s the one thing about Tarot that the movie almost gets right. While there is no official rule against reading from another person’s deck without permission, there shouldn’t have to be. Because common decency and basic ethics already cover those rules. 

A DIFFERENT POINT-OF-VIEW:

Imagine the scenario from the point-of-view of the angry spirit attached to this Tarot, also known as the Astrologer. Isn’t it hard enough being a single, working mother in the 1790s? Harder still for that woman to be branded a witch by the controlling, powerful duke who employs her? The moment she gives that monster an answer he doesn’t want to hear, he smears you to an entire superstitious community, inciting them to murder your child. 

Heartbroken, abandoned, and with nothing left to live for; Astrologer uses her greatest strengths to plot her revenge against the men who unjustly destroy her life. Then, she expects to rest.

However, she leaves behind her one-of-a-kind, hand-painted tarot deck. It cannot be destroyed, so it cannot rest. The task of painting 78 different cards by hand is no easy feat, which takes time and illustrates intense artistic skill. She put love and time into painting her deck because she loves her craft. She is dedicated to it, so dedicated that no amount of power and money from an abusive misogynist is able to intimidate her from telling the hard truth. Other people may not understand her deck, but it’s not their place to judge it. It's not their deck to read. 

SHOW SOME RESPECT:

It may not be an official rule not to read from another person's deck, but a few suggestions of Tarot come to mind here. When learning Tarot, a reader's first deck must be a gift, likely from their teacher. This gives a beginning reader time to practice and acclimate until they are ready for choosing their own deck. This second deck (and every deck after) must speak to the reader, and a relationship forms, a bond so strong that no other reader can interpret the deck as well as the owner. 

The Astrologer’s relationship with this “old, strange deck” isn't simply forged. She forges the deck itself. That is a bond so strong that she remains connected to it even in death. It stands to reason that anyone who reads from the deck would incur her wrath, not because the Psychic is a bitter, unforgiving demon. Because whoever would disturb and criticize her this unique artwork also disturbs her unrested spirit, bringing an ancient curse upon themselves. Reports of unexplained deaths of anyone who comes across this deck litter history leaving behind a single survivor. 

By reading from this deck, Haley dooms each querent, including herself, to the same fate. Each death mimics the cards laid out in their “Horoscope reads” (groan). However, there is a gross misunderstanding as to the motives are explained this group of dumb college kids by a biased survivor. The cards DO NOT predict the demise ahead of time. As stated earlier, Tarot and/or Horoscope don't predict the future. As Haley's voice echoes in the minds of each victim before they die, this is the Astrologer’s way of mocking them with the details of her insultingly bad reads. As the groups mock the Astrologer, she then mocks them in return. 

Is it right? No. Murder is never acceptable. However, it humanity is gifted with the ability to learn from past atrocities. This cursed group is after all in college. They ought to be learning. Yet, the most effort they put into their research is googling stuff on their phones and driving to secluded places in the middle of nowhere. With teenagers this woefully misinformed, it’s a wonder they were accepted into college at all. Let alone survived a vindictive, unforgiving spirit… Some of them anyway.

Sure, the most effective amount of research they do is to interview the Astrologer’s lone survivor. However, she is traumatized, biased, and obsessed with the deck of cards. They should take everything she says with a grain of salt and fact-check her accounts. Instead, they immediately go back to the house of horrors to find the deck and do the most offensive thing of all. They attempt to destroy it with a ritual they googled on their phones. Can you hear my eyes rolling through the page?

Haley's supposed to be the tarot expert in this group, but she clearly has no idea what she's doing. She never did. If she were a Tarot expert, she would know exactly what to do to satiate the cursed deck. Curses don't exist, but let's assume for the sake of the story that they do. Tarot has rules about how to properly and respectfully neutralize a negative deck, none of which involve fire. Get off your phones. 

MAINTENANCE RULES:

Reset: When destruction is off the table, the next rational thing you can do is to hide the deck away. “Keep out of reach of children.” No one will ever read from it again if no one can find it. No reads = no slaughter. It’s a simple and uneventful solution, but the best solutions often are. For example, let's discuss deck maintenance. There are resetting rituals meant to clean a deck from chaotic and negative energy after multiple reads. Even when a deck changes reads, the deck must be RESET. 

Haley failed to do a basic reset before reading from a deck she knows nothing about. Who owns the deck? Where did it come from? Where has it been? What morbid, dark person painted it? How many people read from it before? Did any of them reset the deck? The first thing she should do is reset it before conducting her readings. It’s an act of respect to the deck, and this one action might have saved her friends.

Charging: Just as a deck can be cleansed of negative energy, it can also be filled with good energy. A reader can achieve this with a cleansing crystal like selenite or by the light of the full moon. 

Storage: There are multiple ways to store a Tarot; none of which involve abandoning it in the cold, dusty cellar of a rental house and leaving it for anyone to find. That is the opposite of hiding away a cursed deck. The deck was discovered in its original pine box, so we can safely assume maintenance and care have been minimal over the centuries. 

Once a deck is cleansed and charged, it can then be wrapped in silk or stored in a pine box preferably near the reader's bed. This maximizes the deck's exposure to its reader. While we sleep, our decks absorb and match our energy. Tarot deck have personalities that often match it' readers. 

My husband's decks are often optimistic people pleasers, while my own decks are more literal and direct. It's a strange quirk, but damned if I haven't seen it for myself. Tarot decks do indeed have personalities. The Astrologer's deck certainly takes negative energy and a hostile personality to a new level. However, with proper care, maintenance, and storage, one wonders if the deck would become less vindictive and slowly detach itself from the Astrologer over time.

VICTORY:

In the end, how does Haley, the amateur, defeat the all-power Astrologer? Not through Tarot. She comes to accept that destroying the deck is impossible. The biased hermit little rocks do nothing to detach the vengeful spirit from the cursed deck, and she dies in an epic fashion. It's far too late to begin a maintenance routine because the negative energy is far too powerful. In her final desperate hour, she attempts to communicate with the Astrologer herself through the deck. 

“Sometimes, it just means death.”... No, it doesn't.

As always, her interpretation is laughable nonsense. Death does mean rebirth. Every time. However, there is something legitimate in the reading that saves her, qualities buried deep in every reading she gives. These qualities is ultimately what saves her. 

OBSERVATION and EMPATHY



That is what Tarot is all about. Take it from a seven-year tarot student. After all my study, memorization, and countless practice reads, I have cracked the code. Tarot connects people. The cards don't hold any power. People do. We must take charge of our own lives. That is the lesson to which every reading leads: You are in control. No one and nothing else.

Ultimately, that is what Haley must learn to defeat the evil spirit that haunts her, not necessarily the Astrologer. She must face the trauma and grief that plagues her long before the curse does. Will her own grief cause influence her life, control her actions, and affect her beliefs? In the end, she must question her belief that fate is fixed and unyielding. Instead, she must come to realize that we are all the masters of our own fate.

She finally uses the cards as intended. They are a tool we use to connect with people, but it is Haley who does the connecting. She speaks to the Astrologer on equal ground, empathizing with her loss and sharing in her grief. It is the first time in centuries since her daughter's murder that anyone shows the Astrologer any compassion. Only then does she let go of her rage at the world. She can finally move on, and her spirit's separation from the deck is complete. 

Three survivors walk away from this crazy experience. One can only hope they become all the wiser for it. Haley learns that she is the master of her fate. Her ex Grant learns to be more open with his feelings. That's always a weak arc. However, if anyone deserves to see the vulnerable side to an emotionally stunted person, it ought to be a significant other. Haley deserves a partner who can show her affection. We all do. Learning to open up give the couple a chance at a happy relationship. 

As for Paxton, the fool… He doesn't need to learn anything. His reading urges is to be less stubborn and impulsive. However, that is not what he does. His obsession with true crime teaches him to listen to his instincts, and his instincts tell him to seek the safety of his dorm. He is the only person to survive independently from the group. Not due to impulse. Driving to strangers homes, entering creepy basements, and reading from violent tarot are impulsive actions. Staying on campus and keeping the company of a trusted roommate is self-preservation. That is how he survives and what leads him to “come through” for Haley and Grant later. Poetically, the “fool” is the one person who doesn't need a lesson from this story.

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What does Tarot mean to you? Is it scary and dangerous? Is it heresy? Do you value its potential insight into your life? Are you an active Reader, or are you interested in starting? For me, it is art. Those who design unique deck are artists, and we should support artists. For more information on my exploration of Tarot and its art, check out my new YouTube channel. We primarily review and share our Tarot deck, many of which are designed by incredible artists.