Tarot has always been bunched in with the occult and general spookiness, so it was only a matter of time before somebody took the chance to turn it into a full-on horror story.

Despite Tarot cards not really serving as a reach into the spirit world (don’t get us started, or we’ll never stop), what’s a little silliness among friends? This seems to be this approach that brings us to Tarot, the new supernatural horror that puts the deck front and centre as a clairvoyant item, with more dire consequences for its users than ever expected. The core conceit of the film revolvers around a supposed Tarot practice that is still heavily debated by those who actually use the cards — but this by no means indicates we’re in for a stinker. Frankly, any opportunity for a good fright is welcome in our book, especially if it features some friendly faces from the MCU and an electric writing duo at the helm.

The movie Tarot is actually based on a novel written by Nicholas Adams. The original story, published as Horrorscope in 1992 follows a group of people who attend a horoscope (no “r”) party, who start to mysteriously die in ways that are tied to their zodiac signs. In the face of these shocking deaths, four friends have to figure out why exactly everyone around them is kicking the bucket–and so so before they  succumb too.

In the adaptation written by Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen, the core of the story has been changed from horoscope to Tarot readings, and each of the friends end up dying in ways that connect to their specific readings. It’s a dramatic shift, but it’s certainly much more marketable this way. The quartet of friends finds itself face-to-face with death as they break the crucial rule of never using another person’s tarot deck and thereby bringing on bad luck (a rule debated to this day among those using Tarot decks, with many believing it  a mere myth).