A new movie called Tarot was recently released in theaters and is about the tarot cards coming to life. Rotten Tomatoes describes it as: "When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings -- never use someone else's deck -- they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death to escape the future foretold in their readings." I've seen the trailer come up a few times when I'm watching TV and would really like to see it since I love horror movies. It's nothing new for production agencies to profit off witchcraft in creating a horror movie, but this is the first I've seen about Tarot cards. I never thought of the cards with such a negative connotation, but in this movie, the cards come to life and try to kill the people that used them.
Historically, it has always been bad luck for someone who isn't the owner of the tarot cards to touch them because each deck of cards is personal and should be gifted to someone. However, this movie takes the interpretation out of the cards because the figure on the card is what comes to life.
I would be scared to pull the devil card because it represents self-harm, addiction, and entrapment. But in the movie I assume that I would start getting chased by the devil.
I would also be scared to get the 5 of pentacles card because it represents unexpected heartbreak or loss. Heavy emotional trauma is to be expected when someone pulls this card.
But everyone has a different definition of heavy emotional trauma or sadness, so I wonder how the movie would depict this interpretation. This reminds me of a part in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series where the Bone Carver is seen differently by each person and he takes a form of what that person fears the most. So maybe that's what they do in the movie which would be pretty cool, but not cool to experience.
The film used AI to portray the cards coming to life which I think is really cool that they were able to do that. It's definitely the first of many movies that will use AI to enhance the scenes. It reminds me of how Saw was filmed in only one room and became a multi-movie series, in part because it was the first of its time.
Watching this trailer made me think about my own tarot card reading that I got and what would have come to life or what I would image it coming to life as. I don't think all the tarot cards would work when trying to film a horror movie because some have such good connotations. For example, I don't see how the lovers card could be made into a scary demon. But someone made the Nun movies, so I'm sure that it's possible.
In the reading from this week, I came across a passage that talks about Adam and Eve and how that story may have inspired the notion that accused women witches are more dangerous than male witches. It got me thinking about how Eve is portrayed in the story from Genesis and how knowing the story impacts the way we think. And honestly, it makes me really mad. Men assumed women's bodies were weaker and therefore easier to fall to the devil. This thought probably comes from the Bible because, of course, it was Eve who was susceptible to the serpent and ate the apple. This was accepted as a given because the Puritans believed everything in the Bible and could only assume that women were the weaker sex. If it wasn't for this story in the Bible, would there have even been the Salem witch trials? I found this really interesting article relating Genesis and the treatment of women to Maleficious Malificarium attached below. Washington Post The article relates the treatment of women d...
Everything we've talked about so far this semester regarding strange magic, I have a hard time separating magic from religion. Many religious stories from the Bible demonstrate Jesus and his disciples performing miracles to help those in need. I remember one story where Jesus cured a man of the blindness he had for his whole life. When I first heard this story, I took it for what it was, I was attending a private Christian elementary school at the time anyway. But now in class, we've been discussing the rituals witches would perform or how the cunningfolk would help people. Why is it that our society is more prone to take the Bible for its word, but laugh at magic performed hundreds of years ago? I'm pretty sure that if I was stuck in my small hometown my entire life, I would start searching for ways to keep myself occupied too. This isn't to say I believe in magic, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I don't see much of a difference between people who st...
Over spring break, I visited Phoenix, AZ and to my surprise, there were so many psychics. With only $10 of cash to my name, I told my friends that if I saw a psychic reading for $10, I would do it and write my blog post about it. So of course when I saw the sign offering psychic readings for $10, I had to do it. The woman told me that I had three questions to ask her but she couldn't tell me any more than what I asked her. My friends and I stepped out of the room and got our questions together before going in. She asked me for my name and birthday and for my three questions. The questions I asked were: 1. How do people perceive me when they first meet me? 2. When will I next fall in love romantically? 3. Will I get the job I want after grad school? When she recited the questions back to me, she flipped over 3 tarot cards for each question and explained what they meant to me. First, she said that my career after school elicited happy and successful cards pointing out that I'm ...
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