Upamanyu Biswas
At the end of Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg’s horror film ‘Tarot,‘ Haley and her friends head to the mansion in the Catskill Mountains to destroy the antique tarot cards haunting them. The famed astrologer Alma Astrom informs the group of the dangers associated with the cards and their historical involvement in multiple mass murders. During the car ride, a frightening run-in with The Hanged Man leaves the crew shaken as Paxton abandons the mission and walks away, planning to hide in his dorm room. However, he soon finds himself stalked by a mysterious entity, just like his late friends. Because his fate is seemingly sealed, a distraught Haley and Grant, who survive the curse, are stunned to discover their friend greeting them outside the mansion, surprisingly alive! SPOILERS AHEAD.
A Serendipitous Intervention Saves Paxton
Haley’s mission to destroy the tarot cards ends successfully at the end of ‘Tarot.’ With the curse broken, she and Grant, the two sole survivors of the trip to the mansion in the Catskills, are both saddened by the deaths of their friends and relieved as the nightmarish events come to a conclusion. Consequently, upon learning that Paxton is alive, they are overjoyed and puzzled by how he managed to remain alive, as his end appears inevitable after his return to his room. In the film’s final moments, Paxton jokingly reveals that he survived because of his “cat-like reflexes” and adds that his roommate Todd opened the elevator door at the last second before The Fool could get his hands on the university student. The intervention mysteriously forces the monster to vanish and allows Paxton to survive his precarious situation.
Earlier in the film, when Madeline is killed by The Hanged Man, a terrified Paxton leaves his friends to barricade himself in his college dorm room. On his way, he is followed by The Fool, the tarot card figure linked to him, to the building. Frightened out of his wits, he rushes into the elevator to return to his room as swiftly as possible. However, once inside, the elevator begins operating strangely as it constantly opens and closes while the terrifying The Fool continues to haunt him. He calls Grant to ask for help as he believes his card reading is coming to fruition, but a bad network connection leaves him stranded. Meanwhile, on the other side, Grant, Haley, and Paige assume the worst has occurred to their friend. No one even considers the possibility of Todd saving Paxton’s life.
Paxton’s Fate is Tied to His Tarot Reading
While reading Paxton’s horoscope, Haley describes his personality as “bullheaded” and someone who makes “rash decisions.” This impulsive streak ultimately defines his personality, and the monster who haunts him targets this character flaw. Haley even states that at some point, his rashness may come back to haunt him if he does not learn to manage it by staying close to those he trusts. When Paxton walks away from the group, certain that he is making the right choice by trying to find shelter in his dorm room and waiting for things to get better, he ends up making the same mistakes he was warned about during the card readings.
“The Fool card is basically like you are thinking too hardheaded. You aren’t really thinking things through, and you are very decisive in your decisions even though you don’t think clearly about them. So you basically make what you will with how you choose to live, and you are again just bullish. So that’s a big thing because Paxton is definitely very ignorant, and he starts out not really believing any of this stuff. And as soon as things start happening to our friends, he’s just like, Oh sh-t, maybe we should take this more seriously and really try to figure this stuff out,” Jacob Batalon, who plays Paxton, told Screenrant. The stubbornness in Paxton leads him to get boxed inside the elevator where The Fool, as a personification of his own foolish decisions, comes to haunt and claim his life.
The Presence of Others Vanquishes the Monsters
Intriguingly, Paxton’s claustrophobic encounter with The Fool is predicted by Haley during the card readings, during which she tells him there is a chance that he might feel boxed in or trapped. She also adds that this should not discourage him as when one door closes, another opens. Strangely, when Todd opens the door at the last second before The Fool lays his hands on Paxton, he unknowingly fulfills the prediction of Paxton’s tarot card, as an open door leads to his survival. Although the link may be thread-bare between the two events, a combination of Haley’s reading and the mechanics of the curse play a part in Paxton’s survival from his tarot monster.
Since most of the murders committed by the curse of the tarot cards happen in dark, isolated locations with little to no human presence, it is likely that the monsters can only show up in the presence of the humans to whom they are attached. For instance, Lucas is killed in an empty train station, Elise dies in an empty corridor, and Paige is murdered while no one is with her. The only one who dies in someone else’s presence is Madeline, who The Hanged Man kills while Haley witnesses the entire ordeal. However, since the horoscope reader is part of the group that has been cursed, it makes sense that she is able to see her friend’s tarot card monster without any problems. The same cannot be said in the case of Todd, who is a random individual who is disconnected from the curse.
As a result, Todd cannot see The Fool, and the monster does not materialize in front of him. The card’s curse and monsters only appear as a physical threat to those who have performed a reading using the Astrologer’s cards. Additionally, when Paxton arrives at the mansion in a car, it fulfills the final part of Haley’s prediction, which primarily is about him showing up for his friends when they least expect it. Furthermore, by the time he leaves Todd to help his companions, Haley must have started to destroy the cards, possibly limiting The Fool’s powers to show up while his target is driving.
Thus, at the end of the film, when Haley and Grant are sure that they are the only two to have made it alive, Paxton shows up, defying their expectations and confirming that he did, in fact, escape with his life from The Fool’s clutches, albeit anti-climactically with the help of an unwitting roommate.
