Tarot (#551)


On a rainy Sunday, I went to see another movie, one for which I had seen previews for months.  The previews were better than the movie, although the movie wasn't all that bad.  TAROT is another movie designed to scare you, and it was closer to scaring me than most of the others.  A group of obviously affluent young people are having a wonderful time at an outing in the country and come across a deck of Tarot cards in the house where they're staying.  One girl admits to knowing how to read horoscopes from the cards and proceeds to tell everyone what's ahead for them.  She breaks a rule of tarot readings because you're not supposed to read cards that aren't yours.  Big mistake.  When they get back to the city (each living in a foreboding looking residence), each in his or her turn is subjected to awful things, accompanied by very loud noises and music, including one episode in which the young man has gone down to take a subway and in every corridor, he encounters a subway car rushing at him, eventually putting him down for the count.  Similar events plague a couple of others, and those still standing manage to figure things out.  I hope I didn't spoil the movie for you.  Only 12% of critics and 59% of audiences gave this one a thumbs up, proving there is some justice in this world.  I must have been in the theater that specializes in horror movies because the previews included The  Exorcism starring Russell Crowe, and several other scary ones, one of which is directed by Zoe Kravitz. The only preview exception was a film in Florida that looked like it might have been conceived as an all-black version of Miami Vice, which stars Will Smith in what I think is his first role since the Academy Awards slapping incident.


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