Movie Review: Tarot

Some nights, I scroll endlessly through all the streaming services, and by the time I finally land on something I might want to watch, I’m already half asleep. Lately, I’ve gone back to old reliable, Netflix. To their credit, they’ve been putting out a solid lineup of shows and movies worth watching. They also do a great job of curating genres, and their algorithm has officially gotten into my head. It knows me, and I try to be nice to the A.I. so they might keep us around when they take over.

Tonight’s choice was Tarot. I’m not sure why I picked it. I’m not usually a fan of horror or jump scares. Maybe I thought it would be lighter because of the playful banter between the characters. Whatever the reason, I hit play.

What made it special wasn’t the movie itself, it was the moment. My daughter, who’s been a homework machine since she started elementary school, kept poking her head out of her room to say hello. She’s doing so well, and I’m grateful, but sometimes I feel like I barely see her. On this not-so-stormy night, she asked me to draw a picture for her end-of-year project. So while I was sketching away, Tarot was playing in the background. My wife and I were sitting on the couch. She was there, which I appreciate, but was doing her usual social media scroll, part of her nightly wind-down routine.

As my daughter waited for my amazing doodle, I think the beginning of the movie caught her attention. The characters were just a few years older than her, and she recognized Jacob Batalon from the Spider-Man movies, which helped hook her. We started watching together. My son would have joined us, but he was at a sleepover. My wife after awhile declared, “I’m going to bed”, as she departed down the hallway.

The setup was classic horror. A group of friends rents an enormous, eerie house in upstate New York for a birthday. Of course these kids can somehow rent a small mansion, while my college friends and I had to pool funds just to drink Popov Vodka. Naturally, they run out of alcohol, and one of them says, “Pretty sure this place has booze locked up somewhere,” which leads to them exploring and eventually breaking into a locked basement. Security deposit is toast. And really, when has anything good ever come from a basement in a horror movie?

Down there, they find all kinds of weird stuff, including a handmade deck of creepy-as-hell tarot cards tucked away in a custom wooden box. Naturally, someone in the group just happens to be a tarot expert, and they start doing readings. The order and content of each reading becomes important later as the story unfolds. The group makes it through the night without incident, but the real fun begins the next day when they head home and the death cards start coming to life.

My daughter and I had fun trying to remember what each card said and how each person might die. We were talking throughout the film, making predictions and laughing at how into it we got. Each tarot card came to life in the form of a character that hunted down one of the friends. It was standard horror formula, but it was fun. The tone was silly in parts, which helped, and even though I liked the CGI, a few of the deaths were pretty graphic and made us both cringe.

More than anything, I was just grateful for the time with her. I loved listening to what she thought was going to happen and watching us both cover our eyes as a character was sawed in half. As kids get older, it gets harder to find those shared moments. Their interests start to drift from yours, and you have to work harder to stay connected. She’s going to be a senior next year. College is right around the corner.

The little girl I used to lie next to while watching all her shows has grown up. I’ve always believed that if you want to stay in your kids’ lives, you have to meet them in their world. They’re not going to come into yours.

So I hold onto these moments. I try to find ways we can connect; movies, books, drawings, whatever it takes. Time is flying by, and nights like these remind me how special the little things are. We enjoyed the film. The critics shredded it, and maybe rightfully so, but like everything in life, including a simple horror flick, it’s not always about what you’re watching. It’s about who you’re watching it with.