“There’s something inherently scary about tarot cards and tarot readings,” says Anna Halberg, who with her writing and directing partner Spenser Cohen brings the fortune telling deck to life in terrifying ways in the horror film Tarot. “We love astrology and horoscopes because it’s a way to learn about yourself, but it’s also a way to bring clarity and to learn about the future. On the other hand, if you know what the future is going to hold, good or bad, it will influence the decisions that you make,” Halberg continues. “And just because you could know what the future brings, I don’t know that it’s a good idea that you should.”
Halberg and Cohen sought to make a horror movie that would play to theatrical audiences. “Horror is best experienced in a group,” says Halberg. “There’s something so scary and fun about sitting in a dark theater with a group of strangers and going on this emotional rollercoaster.”
“It’s like being out on Halloween night and going to a haunted house with your friends,” adds Cohen. “We specifically designed this experience for the big screen.”
As they were writing, Cohen says, they noticed that in times of uncertainty—and aren’t we always in a time of uncertainty?—“people turn to tarot and astrology to try to make sense of things,” says Cohen. From there, he and Halberg could explore an age-old idea: is our future written in the stars, or do we have free will over our fates? “That’s a big, universal, global theme that connects with everybody,” Cohen continues. “But at its core, the movie for us became a story with one woman’s conversation with death – a story about her learning to process her trauma and ultimately, to let go.”
For producer Scott Glassgold, the premise tapped into one of the deepest fears human beings share – the impossibility of knowing what the future holds. That made it ripe for Cohen and Halberg’s horror treatment – especially because, incredibly, tarot had not been explored before on film. “Tarot and astrology are fascinating to me,” says the producer. “There is so much we don’t know about the cosmos, and they offer a path towards understanding this unknown. Because it is mystical in nature, inevitably it opens the door to scares. The Major Arcana in tarot, in particular, has an array of pre-existing characters which serves as the perfect jumping off point for horror characters. It is very rare for a world with such distinct iconography to have been previously unexplored cinematically. Tarot was a great opportunity to dive headfirst into such a rich, untapped universe.”
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.
Anna Halberg with her writing and directing partner Spenser Cohen.
Filmmakers Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen have been writing together since they were undergraduates at USC. Their long history of working together has given them a certain synergy. According to Spenser, “We have two brains but we function as one brain so the collaboration process between us is amazing.” They’ve always been fans of horror, with some of their favorite scary films being The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, Alien, and Silence of the Lambs.
As they researched into tarot and astrology, Halberg and Cohen struck upon an idea that would kick the entire film into motion. “Don’t use someone else’s deck,” says Halberg. “It’s one of the cardinal rules of tarot. Every deck is very personal – and in this movie, especially so. Its owner really poured herself into it. And that’s going to have some very negative consequences for our characters.”
With their imaginations brimming with ideas from their research, Halberg and Cohen brought in the experts. “We wanted the movie to be grounded in real facts and history, and tarot and astrology are two disciplines that have been around to predict the future for hundreds, maybe thousands of years,” says Halberg. “We brought in a tarot expert, Angie Banicki, who helped to bring a lot of credibility to this film; she came in to make sure that all of the things we had in the script made sense and to oversee all of our tarot spreads. Anyone who knows about astrology and tarot will see that the spreads really do line up – and there’s some fun Easter eggs in there as well.”
“Life is trying to get our attention through any means possible, and when there might be scarier stuff to process, it can appear in interesting ways,” says Banicki. “I think the way the world is shifting, we are all looking for answers and signs more than ever. We all are feeling more of the feels. I have people come to tell me stories about feeling someone breathing on them in hotel rooms, or seeing objects move, or having lights go on and off, or just feeling like someone is with them.”
In the film, the characters read their fortunes through a sophisticated zodiac spread: twelve cards arrayed in a circle, with one card representing each sign of the zodiac, and each card bringing its own symbolism – mood, relationships, needs, goals. At the center of the circle is a thirteenth card, representing the overall theme of the tarot spread, giving clarity to the other cards.
“We definitely went through the whole tarot deck and talked about cards that are scarier or have darker context,” says Banicki. “Lots of the scarier cards from the Rider-Waite are shown in the film – Death, Ten of Swords, Nine of Swords, Tower, The Devil.”
Anna and Spenser have always been fascinated with astrology so when Sony approached them about doing a project based on the ancient divination art, it didn’t take them long to figure out their story angle.
“There was nothing that was inherently scary to us about horoscopes but what was scary to us and something we’ve always been fascinated with is the idea of Tarot cards and Tarot readings,” says Halberg. “There’s something really terrifying about this idea that you could potentially know the future so we came up with this original idea and went back to Sony.”
“One of the first things we decided was tone,” says Cohen. “We wrote this during COVID, a time where we were all locked in and feeling miserable. We knew we wanted to tell a fun tale that was also scary. It was important that we were able to achieve both those things. A lot of the world was depressing and bleak and a lot of the stuff that was being made felt the same. Even though we love those movies and there’s a time and place for them, we wanted to recapture the feel of movies we loved when we were kids like Jurassic Park, Poltergeist, and films like that. When we set out we wanted to make a film that felt like a mix between James Wan and Stephen Spielberg. When it’s scary, it’s scary. When it’s fun, it’s fun. And in between there’s suspense, great characters, and emotion. That was what we set out to do before we wrote a single word.”
“Spenser and I have written features before and we’ve produced features before but this is the first time we’ve directed a feature. It’s so fun to come up with something in your head, write it down on a piece of paper, and then be able to bring it to life. I really do feel like the end product of this movie is not only what we set out to make, not only in the tone but in the visuals, but is also the story we wanted to tell. I feel so lucky that we had the opportunity to do that. Doing this project reinforced what we already knew, which is that you can make a bad movie from a good script but you can’t make a good movie from a bad script. Meaning, everything starts with the words on the page. It’s part of the reason I feel so lucky Spenser and I have spent so much time working on writing because it really did inform the process.”
ANNA HALBERG (director / writer / executive producer) is a Japanese American who has worked with many of the industry’s leading film and television studios including Walt Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal, Warner Bros., Amblin, and Lionsgate. This year, in addition to Tarot, Halberg has two additional feature films being released: Distant (Amblin / Universal), a sci-fi thriller starring Anthony Ramos and Naomi Scott, which she produced; and House/Wife (Netflix), a suspense thriller starring Alice Braga, which she co-wrote and executive produced. Last year, Halberg was an executive producer on the feature film Expend4bles (Lionsgate) and she wrapped production on an original television series, “Ballistic” (New Regency), starring Jennifer Carpenter, which she wrote, created, and served as co-showrunner. In 2022, Halberg created, wrote, produced, and directed the narrative podcast “Classified” (QCode), starring Wyatt Russell. She is currently adapting the show into a television series with UCP and showrunner Patrick MacManus (“Dr. Death” / “Homecoming”). Also in 2022, her short format project Blink (Sony Pictures) premiered at the SXSW film festival. Most recently, Halberg finished writing the feature project The Wand for Amblin, based on an original idea by Steven Spielberg; she is also attached to write and produce the feature project Tuf Voyaging, based on a novel by George R.R. Martin. Halberg is currently writing the original feature Raindrop for Amazon and the Tomorrow Studios TV series “Rat Queens,” based on the #1 NYT bestselling series. Halberg’s previous television projects include “Stay” (FreeForm / WBTV, with director Jon Turteltaub, starring Skeet Ulrich and Sosie Bacon), “The Dark Side” (ABC Signature / Black Label, with director Joseph Kosinski), “Fabled” (Legendary Pictures, starring Tom Hardy), “Epiphany” (CW / WBTV, with director Lee Toland Krieger), “Mythos” (USA / UCP and Charlize Theron’s Denver & Delilah) and the unscripted series “Macklemore’s Big Surprise” and “Nick Cannon’s Big Surprise” (E! / eOne). Her previous feature projects include The Gateway (Lionsgate), starring Olivia Munn, Frank Grillo, and Bruce Dern, which she executive produced, and the Netflix feature film Extinction (Netflix), starring Michael Peña and Lizzy Caplan, which she co-produced. After graduating from the University of Southern California’s prestigious Film and Television Production program, Halberg produced over 100 commercial campaigns for brands including Facebook (directed by Michel Gondry), Gap, Marvel, Visa, McDonalds, Smirnoff, American Express, and Chevy.
SPENSER COHEN (director / writer / executive producer) has worked with many of the industry’s leading film and television studios including Walt Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal, Warner Bros., Amblin, and Lionsgate. This year, in addition to Tarot, Cohen has two feature films being released – Distant (Amblin / Universal), a sci-fi thriller starring Anthony Ramos and Naomi Scott, which he wrote, and House/Wife (Netflix), a suspense thriller starring Alice Braga, which he co-wrote and executive produced. Last year, Cohen was a writer and executive producer on the feature film Expend4bles (Lionsgate) and he wrapped production on an original television series, “Ballistic”(New Regency), starring Jennifer Carpenter, which he co-wrote, co-created, and served as co-showrunner. In 2022, Cohen co-created, co-wrote, produced, and co-directed the narrative podcast “Classified” (QCode), starring Wyatt Russell. He is currently adapting the show into a television series with UCP and showrunner Patrick MacManus (“Dr. Death” / “Homecoming”). Also in 2022, his short format project Blink (Sony Pictures) premiered at the SXSW film festival. Most recently, Cohen finished writing the feature project The Wand for Amblin, based on an original idea by Steven Spielberg; he is also attached to write and produce feature project Tuf Voyaging, based on a novel by George R.R. Martin. Cohen is currently writing the original feature Raindrop for Amazon and Tomorrow Studios’ TV series “Rat Queens,” based on the #1 NYT bestselling series. Previous television projects include “Stay” (FreeForm / WBTV, with director Jon Turteltaub, starring Skeet Ulrich and Sosie Bacon), “The Dark Side” (ABC Signature / Black Label, with director Joseph Kosinski), “FABLED” (Legendary Pictures, starring Tom Hardy), “EPIPHANY” (CW / WBTV, with director Lee Toland Krieger), “Mythos” (USA / UCP and Charlize Theron’s Denver & Delilah) and the unscripted series “Macklemore’s Big Surprise” and “Nick Cannon’s Big Surprise” (E! / eOne). His previous feature projects include Moonfall (Lionsgate), directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson, which he executive produced and co-wrote, and Netflix’s feature film Extinction (Netflix), starring Michael Peña and Lizzy Caplan, which he co-wrote. After graduating from the University of Southern California’s prestigious Film and Television Production program, Cohen directed dozens of commercials and music videos.
