Tarot

Plot

A group of college friends – Haley, Grant, Paxton, Paige, Madeline, Lucas, and Elise – rent a mansion in the Catskills for Elise’s birthday. With tension in the group following Haley and Grant’s recent breakup, they distract by having Haley read their horoscopes with a box of strange old tarot cards discovered in the basement. Elise gets The High Priestess; Lucas gets The Hermit; Madeline The Hanged Man; Paige The Magician; and Paxton The Fool. Grant receives The Devil; Haley herself gets the Death card.

The next day, the group returns to campus. Elise is attacked by a monstrous version of The High Priestess, who bludgeons her to death with the attic ladder. Lucas is startled by The Hermit in the restricted area of a train station and killed by a speeding train. Each death corresponds to the tarot readings the friends received.

Suspecting something amiss with the deck, they go visit Alma Astron, an expert on tarot that they found online. She reveals that the cards belonged to an astrologer who, in the late 18th century, served a Hungarian Count and would predict the future for him. After a reading that his pregnant wife and child would die in childbirth came true, the grief-stricken Count ordered his men to kill the astrologer’s daughter as revenge. The astrologer, enraged with grief, doomed the Count and his friends to death with her cards, then killed herself and cursed her deck to kill anyone who used it. The cards are responsible for several tarot reading group massacres, including Alma’s own group of friends – she was the sole survivor as she didn’t do a reading on herself. Alma urges them to destroy the deck, which is still at the Catskills mansion.

While driving there, the friends’ car breaks down on a bridge and they are attacked by The Hanged Man, who kills Madeline when she makes a run for it. Terrified, Paxton returns to campus alone but is stalked by The Fool and attacked in an elevator. Haley, Grant, and Paige return to the mansion but are unable to burn the cards and request Alma’s help. Alma summons the astrologer’s spirit, but the astrologer does a reading on her and she is killed by the Six of Swords.

Back at the mansion, Paige is lured to the basement by The Magician, and led into a trance-like state, becoming The Magician’s “assistant.” She hides in a large wooden box after being shackled, but it ends up being locked, and The Magician uses that box to fatally saw Paige in half. Haley decides that if she reads the astrologer’s horoscope, this might end. As Grant is dragged away by The Devil, she does a reading on the astrologer, giving her Death. Eventually, Haley lets go of her mother’s grief, who died of illness, and the astrologer’s spirit is burned alongside the deck. Haley and Grant reconcile over their survival and reunite with Paxton, who survived after his roommate opened the elevator door at the last second, which made The Fool disappear.