Tarot Curse review
We already have a tarot card horror movie at home.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Tarot Curse
Directed by Jason Winn
Written by Dean Loftis and Mary O’Neil
Starring Lauren Chanel, Kamarion Miller, Triston Dye, Evelyn Kim, Selena Turner, Eric Brody, Shazia Pascal and Mikhail Keize
Tarot Curse Review
It’s been a minute since we had a Tubi Original horror movie to talk about. I’m sure that some have been released in the interim…Tubi is pretty generous with their horror releases. The quality of those releases tip towards the “bad” side of the scale…but there have been some worthwhile watches dropped on the service. Given the ad supported model of providing free content…some is probably about as much as one could hope for. What will you get for your time and putting up with a few ads this time around?
Tarot Curse may be on Tubi…but “Original” is a bad descriptor for what it provides. If you’ve ever seen a made for tv or direct to video movie that looks like a generic brand version of a blockbuster movie that hit theaters at the same time…you have some understanding of what Tarot Curse feels like. Now…to be fair…it has a few things going for it that most of those knockoffs don’t. But you can’t escape the familiarity with the plot of last year’s box office hit Tarot. The truth is…it’s no worse than that picture turned out to be. It even has a few things it can hold over its head. And you can watch it for free!
Tara (Lauren Chanel) and friends head to New Orleans in celebration of her birthday. Their IDs won’t get them where they want to go, and the most popular local attractions are sold out. They end up getting an intense tarot card reading from a creepy woman…and return to their normal lives. For a time. As the characters start to get what they desire most…an immediate death follows.
Let’s start with what Tarot Curse has going for it. First, it uses practical effects to deal out its carnage. Any movie that goes this route deserves our respect and Tarot Curse does a good job employing it. From a bowling ball to the skull to a scalping to a gnarly run in with a vending machine, Tarot Curse pushes for the gross effect whenever it can. Kills are more memorable than you expect here because of the care put into the effect work.
Second, the story features one of the best characters we’ve seen in a “teenagers getting killed” movie in a while. Preston (Kamarion Miller) is an A-plus teen character in a horror movie. He figures out what’s cursed them immediately. Of course…no one will listen to him. He goes out of his way to avoid getting his heart’s desire knowing it will lead to his demise. His wish was to be popular. He suddenly finds himself nominated for prom king with the girl of his dreams asking him to take her. Watching him attempt to convince his quickly diminishing number of friends that the cards are to blame…while openly denying himself happiness creates a fun character. The payoff to his situation is a high point as well.
Third…and yes, there’s a third positive, Tarot Card has a likable group of young characters. It’s rarer to find that than it should be. The performances are a notch above expectations as well. I’d argue that all three of these positives are something that Tubi’s original tarot movie has over the 2024 box office hit.
So, what’s wrong with it? We’ve got three for this side too. Let’s run through them quickly. First, Tara is presented as our main character, but Preston is the one with the most interesting and important role. She denies the reality of the situation for far too long. It hurts your investment in the character since you know she’s wrong…and it’s annoying that she won’t listen. Second, Tarot Curse never finds a second gear. Despite fun kill scenes and some good characters…it never feels it has any momentum behind it. Finally, the ending is rushed and feels flat. A character we’ve barely seen introduces a solution that feels too easy to be true…and then Tarot Curse just rolls with it.
The good and the bad even out for a movie that ends up…watchable. I liked it better than Tarot…though that movie had a few things in its favor that this one would have benefited from. If you could pluck the best efforts of each movie and combine it into one story where a tarot reading leads to a pile of bodies…you’d have the first good tarot card horror movie ever made. Instead, we have a couple of okay ones.
Scare Value
In the grand calculus of the Tubi Original…Tarot Curse comes out ahead of most. Perfectly watchable with a few surprisingly effective things under the hood. I liked it better than the brand name Tarot movie from last year…I just wish that this version could have burrowed some of its urgency. You can do worse than sitting through a few ad breaks to watch this Tubi Original. But you can always watch something else. Tubi has a lot of options.
2.5/5
Tarot Curse Link
Streaming on Tubi
