Tarot - A wet torn bag of chips covered in runny dookie

Stinker Madness - The Bad Movie Podcast

A great movie if you're part of the "under the sweater/over the bra" crowd, but even they won't remember that they saw it.

Tarot (2024) is an absolute masterclass in how not to make a horror movie unless you are just providing background noise for teenagers to make out. If you ever wondered what happens when you throw every horror cliché, plot hole, and half-baked character motivation into a blender, this is it. The result is a film so dumb and poorly thought out that it almost circles back around to being entertaining—for all the wrong reasons.

From the get-go, Tarot feels like a checklist of horror tropes. Creepy old woman? Check. Spooky house? Check. Jump scares every five minutes? Double check. It’s as if the writers Googled "horror clichés" and decided to use every single one, especially stealing from Evil Dead and Final Destination. But that’s not even the worst of it. The plot is an incoherent mess, with gaping holes large enough to drive a truck through. Characters make baffling decisions with motivations that seem to change depending on the scene—or, more likely, on the whims of whoever was holding the pen that day.

The acting? Let’s just say that calling it appalling might be too kind. Every line is delivered with the enthusiasm of someone who just realized they left the oven on at home. The humor, if you can call it that, is cringeworthy at best. It feels like the movie is trying desperately to be self-aware, but instead, it comes off as painfully awkward.

And yet... there’s something about Tarot that makes it oddly watchable, at least for certain audiences. If you’re a fan of bad movies, you’ll probably find some enjoyment in how ridiculous it all is. It’s also the perfect flick for teenagers looking for an excuse to make out in the back row of the theater while pretending to watch the screen.

In short, Tarot is a trainwreck of a horror film, but if you enjoy watching a disaster unfold, you might just find yourself entertained—for all the wrong reasons.