TAROT (2024) (SPHE Blu-ray Review)

TAROT (2024)

Blu-ray + Digital 

Label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 

Region Code: A

Rating: PG-13

Duration: 92 Minutes 

Audio: English, French (Doublé au Québec) 5.1 DTS-HD MA, Spanish, English & French (Doublé au Québec) Audio Description Tracks 5.1 Dolby Digital with Optional English, English SDH, French, Spanish Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1).

Directors: Spenser Cohen & Anna Halberg

Cast: Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, Avantika, Wolfgang Novogratz, Humberly González, Larsen Thompson, Jacob Batalon

Based on the 1992 YA novel 'Horrorscope' this PG-13 supernatural-horror romp is centered on seven friends; Elise (Larsen Thompson, Bloodline), Paxton (Jacob Batalon, Spider-Man: Homecoming), Paige (Avantika Vandanapu, Mean Girls remake), Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz, Assassination Nation), Madelyn (Humberly Gonzalez), and couple recently split couple Haley (Harriet Slater, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) and Grant (Adain Bradley), who at the start of the film are on a weekender in the Catskills, staying at AirBNB, drinking and having a good time.When they run out of alcohol they break into a locked basement looking for basement booze but instead find an creepy collection of magic and occult items. Among the dusty relics is a box of hand painted tarot cards, and Haley, who has some experience reading tarot cards does a reading for herself and her friends, though she does give a bit of warning that a sacred rule of tarot is that you never read from someone else's deck. The tarot reading results in 

Elise gets The High Priestess; Lucas gets The Hermit; Madeline The Hanged Man; Paige gets The Magician, Paxton  The Fool, Grant receives The Devil, and Haley reads her own horoscope and gets Death. 

Haley should have heeded her own warning, reading from someone else's deck was a very bad idea, and she has unknowingly unleash a cursed evil, The Astrologer,  that is trapped within the cursed cards, and one by one each the friends must face their fate as  foretold in their readings, but with a dark twist. 

The friends stalked by fate certainly smacks of Final Destination, and I am not complaining about that, I dig it, and for a PG-13 film chock full of jump scares I had a pretty decent time with this one. I think it skews towards a younger audience, and while the idea and execution lack originality I thought it was well-made, looked terrific with some cool, creepy set-pieces, and when the characters end up being killed off by evil supernatural killers that corresponds to each characters the tarot readings. 

The PG-13 prevents any gory set-pieces but the kills are set-up and executed well within that parameter. Of course we get an origin story for the cursed tarot deck thanks to the group tracking down an astrologer named Alma (Olwen Fouere, Mandy), who has previously encountered the horrors of the tarot deck, and survived, so of course the group track her down hoping to get some sort of insight as to how to survive what is happening to them. 

It's all fairly cookie-cutter, the characters are one-note, the kills are neutered, and the scares and outcome are predictable. I will say that it does manage to conjure up some solid atmosphere, and the Final Destination of it all is familiar but fun. I also appreciated some of the practical effects work that brought the tarot characters to life, I just wish the film overall had a bit less familiarity and more bite to it; but for a fright flick aimed at younger teens I can see this being pretty fun stuff, but as an old fart who's watched A LOT of horror, I found it quite predictable and old hat, well-made, but too familiar.    

Audio/Video: Tarot (2024) arrives on Blu-ray from Sony look solid, the digital-shot flick is quite dark looking and the Blu-ray image rises to the occasion with deep blacks and excellent shadow detail. The image is drained of color, there's a nearly monochromatic/sepia earthiness to it which I didn;t love, but the Blu-ray translates that well. Fine detail, depth and clarity are pleasing throughout. Audio comes by way of an immersive English language DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. The score by Joseph Bishara (Malignant, Insidious) sounds terrific, and the sound design is pretty creepy as well. 

Extras include a handful of EPK-style featurettes, we get the 

6-min A Twist of Fate: Making the Film; the 7-min Circle of Friends; and 2-min of Killer Outtakes, plus a redemption code for a Digital HD copy of the film. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. 

Special Features: 
- A Twist of Fate: Making the Film (6:18) 
- Circle of Friends (6:41) 
- Killer Outtakes (2:27)
- Digital Code 

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