18% Horror Movie With MCU & Mean Girls Stars Is Now Streaming After Great $49 Million Box Office

Summary Box office success doesn't always mean critical acclaim - Tarot made money but earned poor reviews.

Tarot's cast and spooky trailer led to high expectations, but the lack of originality disappointed viewers.

Despite mixed reviews, Tarot's success at the box office secured its spot on Netflix's list of horror hits.

Although 2024's Tarot received generally poor reviews, the young adult horror movie was a box office success, and now it's available to stream. In general, the two things that indicate whether a movie is good or not are its critical reaction and its box office. At times, these two areas align. For example, 2023's Talk to Me grossed $92 million and also received a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, sometimes a movie's reviews and its box office oppose each other completely. In that case, the movie falls somewhere in the middle between great and terrible.

When it comes to Tarot, the 2024 horror movie seemed to be on an optimistic path before its release. Tarot's cast was buoyed by recognizable stars such as Jacob Batalon, who is best known for his role as Ned in Marvel's Spider-Man movies, and Avantika, who appeared in Mean Girls at the start of the year. Furthermore, the movie benefited from a short runtime and a particularly spooky trailer. Ultimately, though, Tarot found both success and failure upon its premiere in May 2024. Now, at-home audiences can form their own opinions on this supernatural project.

Related Tarot Ending Explained The supernatural horror film Tarot takes a familiar occult parlor game and elevates it into a chilling exploration of growth and escaping one's fate.

2024's Tarot Is Now Streaming On Netflix

Tarot Joins Other Successful Horror Movies

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After premiering just a few months ago, Tarot is now streaming on Netflix. For context, Tarot follows a group of friends who rent out a mansion in the Catskills for one of their birthdays. For fun, the kids play around with a box of strange tarot cards they found in the basement. Each teen gets a horoscope from the tarot deck, but unfortunately, their fates are much more real than they ever anticipated. The friends must escape their deadly futures and try to stay alive long enough to destroy the tarot cards and end this supernatural nightmare.

Tarot is based on a 1992 novel called Horrorscope by Nicholas Adams.

Tarot joins the ranks of Netflix's best horror movies. There are other relatively recent horror flicks, such as Pete Davidson's Bodies Bodies Bodies or Netflix's shark hit, Under Paris. The streaming service offers plenty of horror classics as well, such as It Follows, The Babadook, and Creep. There are even major horror franchises, like James Wan's The Conjuring and Insidious, or Fear Street. Ultimately, Tarot will fit right into Netflix's terrifying selection, and could even find a second wind of success. Netflix's Top 10 can often defy both box office performance and critical reviews.

Tarot's Theatrical Success Explained

Tarot Earned $49 Million At The Box Office

As previously mentioned, Tarot did both good and bad when it premiered earlier in 2024. The most successful part of the movie was its box office performance. Tarot's budget was a very small $8 million. Upon its release, it earned $49 million at the box office. This allowed the movie to not only break even, but Tarot more than tripled its budget. Notably, this total can be split up by region. In the US and Canada, Tarot only made about $18 million. However, other international territories resulted in an extra $30 million.

Furthermore, the Tarot trailer did a good job of portraying a scary and entertaining movie.

The reason for Tarot's box office success is unclear. Most likely, it had to do with the young, star-studded cast. Jacob Batalon is certainly a familiar face to audiences, and Avantika's breakout in Mean Girls occurred mere months ago. In this way, Tarot capitalized on its cast's previous successes. Furthermore, the Tarot trailer did a good job of portraying a scary and entertaining movie. Perhaps the trailer convinced audiences to see the movie in theaters, leading to an influx of box office revenue, regardless of what viewers actually thought about the movie.

Why Tarot's Reviews & Rotten Tomatoes Scores Were So Bad

Tarot Was Seen As Unoriginal

Tarot may have succeeded at the box office, but its reviews were not nearly as impressive. The horror movie earned a sad 18% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score was a marked improvement, but still not good, at 59%. It seems that the main complaint about Tarot was its lack of originality. Critics felt that although the movie put a twist on how its characters died, the concept itself was not interesting enough to keep them entertained. Additionally, the film's story and characters lacked any real depth, making it hard for viewers to become invested.

Audiences had similar complaints. Those who watched the movie felt that it was cheesy and cliché. They also could not connect to the characters, and often compared the film to Final Destination. However, some audiences were a bit more lenient with the film than critics were. They were entertained by the slasher moments and the scares. In the end, Tarot may have missed the mark with audiences, but it made an impressive amount of money. Now, Netflix will give it some more time to shine - or flop.