The prophecy of evil, the review of the horror film

Prerogatives of a horror film: to disturb, frighten, disgust, shock, disturb and, why not, also entertain. A very complicated challenge, especially today, while the genre is experiencing various shocks: on the one hand the hard and pure horror films, on the other the more cerebral ones, which we would define as arthouse. In between, boundless attempts at emulation, often not up to par and often not inclined to respect those prerogatives, arousing laughter and some yawns in the public. For their part, Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, adapting the novel Horrorscope by Nicholas Admas, they tried hard, but it wasn’t enough to save The prophecy of evil (Tarotoriginal title).

A horror film indebted to the saga of Final Destination, however, linking itself to the usual imagery in which a reawakened curse ends up claiming foolish victims, about whom we care very little. Yet, the source material would also be interesting, except that the general development is very unconvincing and very uninvolving. Writing and aesthetics do not coincide, with the film bordering on the facetious. Of course, the spirit (to stay on topic) is moving The prophecy of evil it is the one dedicated to entertainment, however the entertainment itself should be fueled by certain characteristics (example: not taking oneself seriously), almost totally absent in the horror of Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg.

The prophecy of evil, the plot: the cursed tarot cards

History? Let’s say that straight away The prophecy of evil it has a very long incipit, so much so that it seems to start again after about fifteen minutes. We meet the protagonists, a group of friends gathered in a remote villa in the woods of the Catskills. The occasion is Haley’s (Harriet Slater) birthday, but she has just broken up with Grant (Adain Bradley). Therefore, between winks and grimaces, there is a certain tension in the group. Tension that increases when alcohol runs out. Moved by the desire for beer (what a novelty!), the boys come across a strange room (another novelty!) in which they find a decidedly disturbing tarot deck. Brilliant idea: Haley decides to play tarot cards for her friends, showing them what the stars seem to have in store. Too bad that tarot cards are damned, and prophecies inexorably fall on children. One by one, they will end up slain and killed by the inexorable curse. How to get out of it?

A horror that doesn’t believe in itself

No, we tell you, there is no way out: The Prophecy of Evil, quietly and clumsily, tries to make the destiny, of which we are the direct creators, horrifying (hence the wink at Final Destination) . Randomness and destiny are the disheveled impulses that add to a never scary horror tone, while avoiding as much as possible (and this is a good thing) the use and abuse of jumpscare (there are, but they tend to be masked and/or predictable ). The point is that the general technique, like the screenplay, it doesn’t make the film compelling enoughinserting into the story those classic elements that have made the fortunes and misfortunes of hundreds of horror films (a final girl, a group of unintelligent kids, a house in the woods).

The idea of ​​cursed tarot cards, and of a diversified death, which manifests itself in a different way each time (perhaps the mad magician is the most successful, or at least the only one who actually arouses a shiver), would also be cinematically efficient, nevertheless The prophecy of evil arrives tiredly at the epilogue, following in the wake of a handful of borderline dialogues, in which we end up getting lost without any real knowledge of the facts. What to say? That of Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg is a toothless and harmless horror film, which wants to entertain without fully believing in it. And if the script doesn’t believe it, the audience can’t believe it either.