Tarot Ending Explained: Unraveling the mystery behind Netflix’s latest supernatural horror

Released earlier on May 3, 2024, Tarot is a supernatural horror movie available for streaming on Netflix. The movie, directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, focuses on a group of college students who meet gruesome deaths after playing with a cursed deck of cards.

The movie is based on the 1992 novel Horrorscope by Nicholas Adams and features the following official synopsis:

“When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings, 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.” [via ImDb].

The movie, which stars Harriet Slater and Adain Bradley, features plenty of scares with a chilling plot that may have led to questions from viewers. Here, we attempt to explain the thrilling ending of the movie.

Tarot ending explained: How the Arcana entities hunt down the college students

The movie follows a group of seven college friends: Haley (Harriet Slater), Grant (Adain Bradley), Paxton (Jacob Batalon), Paige (Avantika Vandanapu), Madelyn (Humberly González), Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz), and Elise (Larsen Thompson). The group, on a weekend getaway, rents a remote mansion in the woods and is seen searching for alcohol on the property.

However, their search leads them to an old deck of Tarot cards, which Haley, who knows how to read them, is asked to use by her friends. She reads their horoscopes, which reveal a series of horrific deaths for her companions. When the group returns to the city, they are faced with deaths that mimic the readings, prompting them to suspect that the deck of cards is involved.

The group takes help from an occultist named Alma Astron, whose role has been portrayed in Tarot by Olwen Fouere. Upon realizing that the cards were actually cursed by the spirit of an 18th-century astrologer, the group attempts to destroy the cards in the hope that they will escape their fates.

However, the cards appear indestructible, as only Haley, Paxton, and Grant end up surviving. The group eventually realizes that the only way to escape their fate is to perform a tarot reading on the spirit, who was an astronomer, which leads them to realize that she is trapped in this realm due to the grief emanating from the loss of her daughter.

Haley herself had lost her mother recently, which leads to a bond forming between the two as the spirit is eventually freed and the curse is broken. Regardless, the movie features a range of Arcana entities that the spirit initially set free on the group, leading to their deaths.

Paxton, however, ends up surviving due to his roommate, as the curse also stipulates that it will be broken if another human being intervenes. The Arcana entities are eventually explained as the manifestations of the astronomer’s spirit, which means that the destruction of the Tarot cards also leads to her destruction.

Regardless, the deaths themselves occur based on the tarot readings, which are all intricately connected to the individual’s personality, leading to inescapable death for 4 of 7 friends. Grant ends up surviving due to Haley's intervention, while Haley herself survives due to the bond she creates with the astrologer, eventually leading the spirit to be freed.

Hence, the movie itself did not present a lot of scope for a potential sequel, considering both the spirit and the tarot cards end up being destroyed or freed in the end. The three survivors end up starting a new life in the end, determined to move past the horrifying experience.

Tarot is now available to be watched on Netflix.