Tarot 2015

The movie begins outside a provincial mansion nestled in the scenic Catskills, where a group of college friends have gathered to celebrate Elise’s (Larsen Thompson) birthday. The group includes Harriet Slater as Haley, Adain Bradley as Grant, Jacob Batalon as Paxton, Avantika as Paige, Humberly Gonzalez as Madeline, and Wolfgang Novogratz as Lucas. While engaging in a party drinking game, old flames Harriet and Grant hint to their friends that they recently broke up on the drive, suggesting their relationship was heading in separate directions.

During their exploration of the mansion, the friends stumble upon a forbidden room filled with various artifacts. Among these, they discover a mysterious wooden box decorated with a zodiac wheel, which contains a deck of intricately hand-painted tarot cards. The group, driven by curiosity, convinces Haley — who is knowledgeable about tarot — to perform some readings. Despite her intuition sensing something ominous, she begins nonetheless. Her first reading is for Elise, who is given the High Priestess card, and Haley warns her to slow down as she climbs a ladder in her vision. Madeline receives The Hanged Man, which hints that her Pisces nature often makes her avoid danger. Paige draws The Magician, with a prophecy of upcoming change, while Lucas gets The Hermit, which suggests he will encounter great wealth and possible love, especially hinting at a romantic interest with Madeline.

Boy William, as Tristan Slug, is not listed in the cast, so his involvement isn’t detailed here.

Haley’s own reading reveals Death, leading her to remark that “love will be the death of me.” As the readings progress, unsettling images flash across their minds, signaling the reawakening of an ancient evil buried long ago. Their curiosity leads them to leave the mansion and return to campus, but not without consequences. Along the way, Lucas stops at a gas station and unexpectedly wins $700 from a scratch card, adding a strange stroke of luck to the ominous day.

Once back home, strange occurrences escalate. Paige and Elise are shown in a tender moment over the phone, but Elise soon hears odd noises from her attic. The ladder suddenly descends, and when she investigates, she witnesses shadows moving and candles flickering eerily around her. She glimpses a monstrous apparition resembling the High Priestess card, which horrifyingly causes her to fall from the ladder — and then she is violently crushed under a descending ladder that impales her.

The group mourns Elise, especially Paige, as Haley tries to comfort her, sharing her personal connection to tarot readings that she originally turned to during her mother’s illness. Haley confesses she once sought only positive predictions but was met with messages of death each time. Meanwhile, Lucas walks Madeline home, and although their tarot readings hinted at potential romance, they just share a meaningful hug before he departs. Later, Lucas is haunted by The Hermit spirit, which stalks him around a subway station, leading him into a restricted rail yard where the spirit corners him in an abandoned train. Terrorized, Lucas escapes but is ultimately struck and killed by an oncoming train.

Haunted by the tragic deaths of Elise and Lucas, Haley uncovers that their fates might be linked to the troubling tarot deck. She seeks out Alma Fouere, a scholar with knowledge about the cursed cards, who reveals the chilling history behind them. Alma explains that the deck originated in the 1700s when a wealthy Count summoned an astrologer — Suncica Milanovic — to diagnose his ill wife and child. Instead, the astrologer’s readings foretold their deaths, which fueled her wrath. She cursed the deck with her spirit after her own tragic death, vowing that anyone who used the cards would meet a similar end. Alma warns the teens to find and destroy the deck to break the curse.

Determined to end the terror, the friends return to the mansion to locate and burn the deck. However, the cards stubbornly resist destruction. Alma joins them for a seance intended to communicate with the astrologer’s spirit. During the séance, the spirit manifests as the Six of Swords, and Alma suddenly dies, pierced by six swords. The remaining friends face the horrifying realization that the curse is still active.

Paige rebooks the mansion and leads the group back to destroy the deck forever. On their way, the ominous prophecies seem to accelerate. Grant’s car sputters and stalls as Adain Bradley portrays his character’s dread — his card reading suggested he would come through unexpectedly, which indeed proves true as he fights for survival. Meanwhile, Madeline, forewarned by her card’s warning to avoid danger, runs in fear during a tense bridge scene and is hung in a chilling display of the deck’s power.

Back at the mansion, the friends attempt a final ritual. Alma’s spirit appears again, and Haley does the Astrologer’s reading once more, hoping to reverse the curse. She draws the Death card in her own reading but uses it as a symbol of her release from grief over her mother’s passing, urging the spirit to let go of its pain. The ritual succeeds as Alma’s spirit is destroyed, along with the cursed cards, which ignite and turn to ash. A symbolic scene shows the Astrologer reuniting with her daughter in the afterlife, signifying the curse’s end.

In the closing moments, Haley and Shandy Aulia as Julie, walk away from the mansion hand in hand. They witness an approaching car, fearing spirits might still linger, but it’s revealed to be Paxton, alive and surprisingly unscathed. He recounts that his roommate accidentally saved him by opening the elevator door, causing The Fool to vanish. With the curse lifted, the friends reflect on how their fates can be altered and challenge the idea of inevitability — culminating in Haley’s defiant statement, “Fuck fate.”

This story is a haunting journey into the dangerous power of the tarot deck, the dark history embedded within it, and the possibility of rewriting one’s destiny by confronting and overcoming ancient evil curses.