With Tarot, filmmakers Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen did what any responsible writing and directing team would do as they began the project. They collectively sought out a tarot card reading.
Well, at least one of them had a tarot reading.
“So, we brought in an astrology expert named Angie Banicki to consult on the film and she did a reading for me in pre-production before the movie started,” Halberg told me in a Zoom interview Wednesday.
“But just to be safe, Spenser did not get a reading,” Halberg added with a smile. “One of us has to live, you know!”
There’s reason why the stakes are so high in Tarot, which will play in Thursday night previews before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday.
A tantalizing horror tale defined by inventively terrifying visuals, heart-pumping jump scares and an undeniable sense of dread looming over the film’s atmospheric setting, Tarot follows a small group of college-age kids renting a mansion for a short getaway.
When one of them happens upon an antique wooden box containing a deck of tarot cards in a creepy room in the abode, the group members give into their impulses. Ignoring the unspoken rule of never using another person’s tarot deck — bad things will happen if you do — one of the students versed in the practice gives tarot readings to each of her friends in the group.
Not long after, an ancient astrologer who bound her soul to the deck physically manifests as the haunting characters pictured on each of the cards that were dealt — and one by one she makes her victims pay in the most hellish ways imaginable.
Much like Ouija boards, tarot cards generally evoke feelings of uneasiness, maybe because they can reveal fortunes that aren’t all made of sweetness and light.
Oddly enough, Halberg and Cohen weren’t fated to make a movie about tarot cards, but something else that predicts fortunes.
“It’s interesting because Sony had come to Spenser and I wanting to make a horror movie about astrology, but for us, there’s never been inherently scary about zodiac signs and horoscopes,” said Halberg, an expert in chills of another kind because she hails from the sometimes cold and snowy state of Minnesota.
“So, we went away and started brainstorming, and what had always been scary to us are tarot cards and tarot readings,” she added. “There’s something that’s so terrifying about this idea that you could predict the future or know what’s going to happen and we were like, ‘That’s a horror movie.’”
To ratchet up the intensity, Halberg and Cohen not only created a story about tarot card readings but focused intensely on the images on the cards and what could transpire if the ghastly characters emerged from them.
“When we partnered the iconography of these cards with something we’ve never seen before — seeing them come to life — we were like, ‘That’s something new and unique and special,” the filmmaker noted.
Halberg Says The Idea Of ‘Tarot’ Was Written In The Stars, So To Speak
Based on author Nicholas Adams’ 1992 novel Horrorscope, the origin of Tarot is rooted in the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was during that period of uncertainty that Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen realized how people were looking for some sort of mystic guidance in a bizarre age of such quiet and isolated desperation.
“It was something that we were just feeling in the energy around us during the pandemic,” Halberg recalled. “We saw all of our peers and friends turning to the stars or tarot cards or other things for some sort of clarity because it was such an uncertain time. So, this idea of fate versus free will was really around us and it’s a theme that we wanted to explore in the movie.”
As such, two of the characters in Tarot — which stars Jacob Batalon, Avantika, Harriet Slater, Aiden Bradley, Humberly González, Wolfgang Novogratz and Larsen Thompson — consider surrendering to the idea that they can’t fight the fate that was literally dealt to them in their tarot card readings.
The fascinating idea of being in control of one’s fate versus free will is one of those topics that will be up to debate for all time, and Halberg said she wanted that idea represented in the narrative of Tarot.
“I very much believe that we’re in control of our own lives and destinies, but we wanted to reflect all perspectives in the film,” the filmmaker explained. “So, there are different characters who are skeptics and there are characters who believe in free will — and there are characters who feel that their fate is written in the stars. So, we really wanted to explore all of the different points of view on the subject matter.”
The great thing is, Tarot is given even more narrative depth – albeit in a very haunting sort of way — through a scene that examines the history of astrology. After all, the malevolent spirit who manifests herself as all the ghoulish tarot card characters in the movie is dubbed “The Astrologer.”
“We really wanted to root the film in history and actual facts because there is such a deep history to astrology and to tarot cards and the way they’ve been used in the past,” Halberg said. “We thought that was a really fascinating thing to tie in.”
Halberg and Cohen Made Sure Their ‘Tarot’ Characters Weren’t Infected With ‘The Stupid Person Syndrome’
While there are plenty of humorous moments in Tarot, the laughs are born of comic relief rather than laughing at the silliness of situations that are often featured in horror movies.
Those moments, of course, are generally tied to characters who have been infected by the bug I often refer to as “the stupid person syndrome.” Such characters who are infected with the sickness in horror movies generally are the type of people who see blood on a doorstep and the said door of a creepy mansion is propped open — but they go in anyway.
However, since Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen respect the intelligence of their audiences, their characters in Tarot don’t walk into any death punches — they run away from them.
In effect, Tarot’s characters act like any sensible person would in a similar situation.
“We spent a long time thinking about that because I, too, hate the stupid person syndrome,” Halberg said with a smile. “I find it a lot in horror films where you ask yourself, ‘Why are they staying in this house?’ or ‘Why are they going into the attic?’ ‘Why are they doing all these things that are so contrary to what you would actually do in real life?’ It takes you out of the movie.”
Instead, Halberg — who has a cameo in Tarot as a police detective — said she and Cohen thought about what the characters would do from an audience member’s point of view.
“We wanted to make sure that even though there’s something supernatural and unbelievable happening in the movie that the reactions of our characters are really grounded and feel realistic,” Halberg explained. “We wanted you to relate to them and actually put yourself in their shoes with the choices that they’re making.”
Scary Moments On The Set Of ‘Tarot’
While it’s not unusual to hear of odd occurrences related to a production’s subject matter happening during a film shoot, Anna Halberg said there thankfully wasn’t a moment where she looked at Spenser Cohen and said, “Maybe we shouldn’t have messed with this.”
That’s not to say, however, that there weren’t any scary moments on the set.
“There was nothing super scary that happened on set but I will say Spenser and I liked to scare each other a lot because we had a ton of overnight shoots and late-night shoots so we would try to entertain and scare one another,” Halberg said with a laugh. “But I don’t think anything super scary happened outside of us making it happen.”
Also starring Olwen Fouéré in the pivotal role of a survivor who has a history with the cursed tarot deck, Tarot will play in Thursday night previews ahead of its opening on Friday in theaters nationwide.
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