TAROT

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens outside a mansion in the Catskills, as a group of college friends – Haley (Harriet Slater), Grant (Adain Bradley), Paxton (Jacob Batalon), Paige (Avantika), Elise (Larsen Thompson), Madeline (Humberly Gonzalez), and Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz) – have rented the place out for Elise’s birthday. While playing a drinking game, Harriet and Grant, who were previously dating, quietly let it slip to their friends (Grant to the guys, Haley to the girls) that they broke up on the way over to the mansion, as they feel their relationship is moving in different directions.

After running out of beer, the friends search through the house for hidden booze until they come upon a restricted room. They find a series of artifacts before coming upon a wooden box with a zodiac wheel on it, and inside is a deck of hand-painted tarot cards. The group convinces Haley to do their readings since she is knowledgeable with tarot cards. Despite sensing there might be something wrong, Haley goes ahead. She starts with Elise, who is given the High Priestess card, with a reading that she will be climbing a ladder, but is warned to slow down. Madeline gets the Hanged Man and is told that her zodiac sign (Pisces) tend to run from danger. Paige gets The Magician and is told a change is coming in her future, and Lucas gets The Hermit, being told he will receive great wealth and possible love (he and Madeline are hinted to like each other). Paxton gets The Fool, though he is told he will come through for his friends in unexpected ways. Haley does Grant’s reading despite him not wanting to play, and he is drawn the Devil card, being warned that he may lose someone closest to him. Haley does her own reading and is given the Death card, as she says love will be the death of her. Moments later, a series of images shows some kind of ancient evil reawakening.

The group leaves the mansion and returns to their campus. On their way back, Lucas stops at a gas station and wins $700 from a scratch card. After returning home, Paige and Elise talk on the phone (they are dating) before Elise hears weird noises coming from her attic. The ladder has come down, and she goes to investigate. Elise sees a shadow moving around and looks down for a moment before looking back up to seeing candles lit everywhere. Elise is then met by a monstrous vision of The High Priestess from her card, causing her to fall from the ladder. The High Priestess then starts slamming the ladder down onto Elise’s body until it crushes and impales her.

Elise’s friends, especially Paige, mourn her death. Haley stays with her and tries to comfort her by telling Paige that she originally got into tarot readings when her mother was sick with cancer. Haley tried to find any reading that would tell her of good fortune, but every reading she did resulted in death.

Lucas walks Madeline back to her place. While it seems that they may act on the romantic part of the reading, they just hug before Lucas goes to the subway station. He is then haunted by The Hermit, who stalks him around the station before he ends up wandering into a restricted railyard. The Hermit corners Lucas in an inactive train and scares him, causing him to fall out and get hit by an incoming train.

Haley starts to realize that Elise and Lucas’s deaths correspond to their tarot readings. After doing some research, she learns that a woman, Alma Astrom (Olwen Fouere), has some knowledge and connection to deaths related to tarot readings. Haley goes with Grant, Paxton, Paige, and Madeline to visit Alma, who initially turns them away until Haley tells them what they are going through. Alma brings them in and quickly determines that the deaths are connected to very specific tarot cards coming from the same box that they found. She tells the teens that whenever people have done readings with these cards, they have all died, with Alma being the sole survivor of one particular series of deaths in London. Alma goes on to explain that the cards originated in the 1700s when a wealthy Count called for an Astrologer (Suncica Milanovic) to do a reading, as his wife and child were very ill. The Astrologer could only come up with readings that resulted in death. When the Countess and her child eventually did die, the Count accused the Astrologer of witchcraft and had his men hang her daughter. In her rage and grief, the Astrologer placed a curse upon the cards and committed suicide, binding her spirit to the cards and doing a reading on the Count and his men. This led to their horrific deaths. Alma suggests to the teens that they find the deck and destroy it.

Paige rebooks the mansion so they can find their way back and destroy the deck. On the way there, the teens start to fear which one of them might be next. When they drive across a bridge, Grant’s car begins to slow down before ultimately powering down. Madeline then sees an image of a Hangman appearing on the foggy window, and she realizes she is next. While her reading said that people like her tend to run from danger, the others suggest doing the opposite of what the reading said to prevent their deaths…but Madeline runs out the car anyway, and Haley runs after her. Grant, Paxton, and Paige flee the car when another spirit starts to attack. Madeline runs until the Hanged Man lowers his noose and grabs her by the neck, effectively hanging her in front of her friends.

While Haley, Grant, and Paige resolve to head back to the mansion, Paxton ditches them and goes back to campus. There, he is stalked by The Fool, who chases him into the building while giggling maniacally. Paxton makes it into an elevator while The Fool’s mask changes expressions. The Fool makes his way into the elevator and appears to lunge toward Paxton.

The other three make it back to the mansion and find the deck. They throw it into the fireplace but find that the cards do not burn. Alma arrives to join them and help. They attempt to conduct a seance where Alma would try to contact the Astrologer’s spirit. This results in the Astrologer doing Alma’s reading, drawing the Six of Swords card. Alma is pulled into the darkness and later re-emerges dead with six swords in her back. Haley and Grant run away while Paige is split off from the group and stalked by The Magician. She finds herself in an audience where The Magician uses her as his unwitting assistant. Paige is trapped in a box and ends up sawed in half.

Haley and Grant hide as they wait for their killers to come get them. She tells him that before they started dating, she did a reading that said their relationship wouldn’t work out, but she ignored it. Before they broke up, she did another reading and was told the same thing. Soon, The Devil shows up to pull Grant through a window, while Haley is stalked by Death.

Haley reaches the deck and decides that the only way to reverse the curse is to do the Astrologer’s reading. She does so and draws the Death card on the Astrologer, but she uses it as an opportunity to let go of her grief over her mother’s death, while also trying to convince the Astrologer to let go of her own grief over her daughter. Grant arrives to protect Haley as a surge of energy causes the Astrologer’s spirit to be destroyed while the cards go up in flames. A quick glimpse is shown of the Astrologer reuniting with her daughter in the afterlife.

Haley and Grant walk away from the mansion hand-in-hand when they see a car approaching. They fear it is another spirit, until they see Paxton, alive and well, emerging from the car. They embrace him as they realize his reading of coming through for his friends in an unexpected way has come true. On the way back, he explains that he survived because his roommate Todd opened the elevator door and caused The Fool to disappear. With the curse now over, Grant says that it was possible for them to change their fates, to which Haley responds, “Fuck fate.”

Seven college friends - Haley, Grant, Paxton, Paige, Elise, Madeline, and Lucas - rent out a mansion for a weekend and come across a box containing mysterious tarot cards. Haley does everyone's readings, including herself, which leads to weird things happening.

Some of the readings, like Lucas coming into money, come true, but the group starts to get haunted by the spirits represented by each of their cards. Elise is killed by the High Priestess when she uses a ladder to bludgeon Elise to death, while The Hermit goes after Lucas in a railyard and causes him to get hit by a train. Haley looks into the history of the cards and goes with the rest of her friends to find a woman named Alma Astrom, who survived a series of deaths related to the tarot readings from that specific deck. Alma explains that they were created by an Astrologer in the 1700s, as she did a reading for a Count whose wife and child were in danger of dying from illness, but the Astrologer always pulled the death card. When the reading came true, the Count accused the Astrologer of witchcraft and had her daughter killed. As revenge, the Astrologer cursed the cards and binded her spirit to the deck after doing a reading on the Count and his men to ensure their painful deaths, as well as those of anybody who comes into contact with the cards.

The group resolves to return to the mansion to destroy the deck. On their way there, Madeline is killed by the Hanged Man, and Paxton ditches the group, where he gets stalked by The Fool. Haley, Grant, and Paige make it back to the mansion, but the cards cannot be easily destroyed. Alma arrives to help and tries to contact the Astrologer's spirit, but this leads to her own death via the Six of Swords card. Paige is killed by The Magician when he saws her in half. The Devil pulls Grant out of a window while Death goes after Haley.

Haley gets to the deck and does a reading on the Astrologer to reverse the curse. She draws a Death card on the Astrologer, but Haley uses this as an opportunity to let go over the grief of losing her mother, and she urges the Astrologer to let go of the grief over her daughter's death. The Astrologer's spirit is destroyed along with the cards, but she reunites in the afterlife with her daughter. Haley is found by Grant, and they are rescued by Paxton, who survived his encounter with The Fool purely by dumb luck.