If I had to pick a reason that this was today’s selection, it’s runtime. Yeah, I think that might be the only reason this one made the cut. It’s got all the hallmarks of something just commercial enough to be annoyingly haunted. The thumbnail has the classic image of a terrifying mask intended on enticing you all the way to pressing play on this flick. It’s nearly tangible desperation. This movie is incredibly eager to try and draw you in however it can. The only problem is once you press play, that’s when the regret seeps in pretty quickly.
As I sit here now I’m trying my hardest to come up with something that is redeeming about this movie. I feel like I’ve settled on the production value. That feels just vague enough to be able to hand over a few brownie points for how put together the film is. It all just feels like a stretch in the end. This movie really feels like a low budget horror movie with a huge budget. I know this seems like an oxymoron. Ok It IS an oxymoron. But that’s really what this movie tends to be. There’s little substance, if there’s any at all. So this one feels like it’s ripe for a little bit of breakdown. I don’t care if you see this movie or not so lets just switch gears and talk about this movie like it’s in the room.
We open up on a group of 7 college friends who are enjoying a weekend getaway at a fancy mansion in the Catskills because that’s what young twenty-somethings are into these days. Three dudes, four girls. It’s Elise’s birthday and they have decided the rigors of whatever it is they do on campus has eclipsed their ability to focus and have absconded to the countryside for a meaningful respite to meaningfully notate the anniversary of their dear friend’s arrival on this planet. Not really. They spend an absurd amount of time drinking alcohol all the way up until they are down to their last beer. Oh no! When presented with this conundrum, there’s only one actual resolution. Scour the residence for hidden alcohol. After all, they ARE in the middle of nowhere and are void of liquor stores nearby to satisfy their lust for the devil’s elixir. This insatiability would normally be the early stages of full blown alcoholism, but these kids are just letting off a little steam because of the big birthday weekend so it’s totally fine. We get a fantastic montage of places they’ve hidden the camera behind a small door that someone opens to reveal them making variations of a sad face that they haven’t stumbled upon a secret stash of a booze baron. That is until we get to the one door clearly marked “Keep Out!” Obviously what you’re going to do in that situation is open that door. Oh wait, there’s a lock on it. So let’s break it. And they do. It leads to a hidden creepy basement filled with relics of all form and fashion. At no point does anyone even bat an eye at any of this or find it to be a bad idea. That is until we find the tarot cards…
Just kidding. They look super creepy and evil but unfortunately that day was opposite day so they were really excited to use them instead. Based on exposition we get after the fact, the gang forgoes a rousing game of charades in favor of having their horoscope read to them via these fantastically disturbing tarot cards. Nothing will go wrong, right? Probably. So they leave the basement and back up to the living room for a reading. Fortunately one of the girls can do this. She starts shuffling cards like it’s time for Uno but instead begins divination and condemns everyone to death by way of an evil witch being trapped in the tarot cards. I know, I know. If I had a nickel, right? If you thought that death was going to happen right then and there, you’d be wrong. Things just end pretty casually and then all the kids pack up the next day and go back to college in their really nice, seemingly unaffordable cars. But that’s not important.
Back at school everyone splits up and goes about their business. So Elise, the birthday girl herself, she’s up first. I guess that’s what you get if you’re going to demand a whole birthday weekend in the Catskills. So she takes a bath in her dorm. Yup. A bath. In her dorm. Then she goes into the hall where there’s a ladder coming out of the attic. Of her dorm. Yup. A Latter. In her dorm. Whatever. She climbs up and you think there’s going to be a jump scare. But there isn’t. She looks down from the spooky attic for a moment and when she looks back it’s covered in lit candles and then there’s a scary lady screaming at her. She falls alllllll the way to the floor. Like 7 feet down. She can’t get up because of the fall. Then she takes a ladder to the back like 4 times or something. Basically she gets killed by the ladder. And I think several parts of this whole ordeal had to do with her horoscope. Creepy, right?
Next is one of the dudes. He and one of the girls are out on a boy girl date and then the date ends and he’s going to walk back to the train station. This is one of those movies where people go places and there’s literally no other people are around anywhere. I always love when that happens. So he goes to the train station. Nobody at all. He tries to go somewhere and sees a creepy dude. Then all the lights go out just as he ducks into a door that says “Restricted Area” and I’m quite certain he didn’t have the proper access to go through that door. He just went through it. And behind it is a room with a bunch of old trains. He’s running away from the creepy guy and ends up getting run over by a train that nobody saw coming. And then he’s dead. Also, I’m pretty sure there were things that happened that were specific to his horoscope too. See a pattern. They’re all going to die like that. It’s the whole thing behind the movie.
Realistically I don’t have the energy to catalog all the deaths. This movie is just not good. It’s the perfect example of mass produced nonsensical carnage with a dash of intensely dark imagery and jump scares. I have to say that I was so angry at the end of this movie because Paxton, arguably the most annoying character in the whole movie, apparently survives off screen for no good reason. His death is imminent and richly deserved. But they don’t kill him. And it’s so stupid. I thought for half a second that the twist was going to be that him being alive wasn’t real it was one of the twisted beasts represented by the tarot deck posing as Paxton but it was just him and that’s that. It was a dumb ending that I hated. This movie is easily a 2 for me. it just is. I was going to say 3 but as soon as I put it down I erased it and put a 2. This is a bad dumb movie and it’s a huge waste of time. It’s nothing special. It’s the standard schlocky garbage that just gets mass produced at a cheap rate and makes just enough money to be mildly profitable and the cycle continues. So don’t watch this one unless you’re in the mood to watch a movie that doesn’t matter and is lame. That’s my professional opinion. Here’s my horrorscope, I’ve got 10 more days of this and I’m really ready for Christmas season now. So this will be a little tough. But we’ll keep it going. Until next time, I’ll catch you on the flip side.
