NEW YORK (OSV News) – What’s on the cards for viewers of the horror flick “Tarot” (Screen Gems)? As it turns out, not much. While the bloodletting on display in this inept production is relatively restrained, the characters are cardboard and the mythos explaining their bedevilment lame.

To celebrate a friend’s birthday, a group of college students have rented a house at which they drink the night away. Belatedly discovering that they’re out of liquor, they scour the dwelling for alcohol. In lieu of booze, they discover a wooden box containing a pack of tarot cards and, for a lark, decide to have a group reading.

This is facilitated by the fact that one of their number, Haley (Harriet Slater), is well versed in such matters. What slender strands of a background story are on offer concern the untimely death of Haley’s mother, her resulting conviction that fate is inescapable and her recent breakup with her boyfriend, Grant (Adain Bradley).

Returning to campus, the amigos gradually discover that their dabbling in divination has left them cursed. Each is haunted by the predominant figure in the hand he or she was dealt, and nasty (though mostly unseen) deaths ensue.

Among those thus targeted is good-time-Charlie Paxton (Jacob Batalon), a disheveled slacker whose skewed outlook on life is intended to provide comic relief. Third-act elucidations of the ensemble’s predicament are provided by white-haired witchy woman Alma (Olwen Fouéré).

Such is the sum and substance of co-writers and directors Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg’s screen version of Nicholas Adams’ 1992 novel “Horoscope.” It’s an eminently forgettable experience that, while unlikely to frighten or offend grown moviegoers, will probably leave them longing for a reshuffle.

The film contains occult themes, several gory images, a fleeting reference to drug use, a couple of profanities, frequent milder oaths, at least one rough term and much crude language. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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When the curtain rises Saturday evening on Los Angeles Opera’s “Turandot,” composer Giacomo Puccini’s last work will feature the L.A. debut of the production’s biggest star: monumental stage sets designed in the early 1990s by David Hockney, the renowned British painter and celebrated chronicler of Southern California life.

Bathed in deeply saturated red and ultramarine, the swooping curves and dagger-like angles of Hockney’s “Turandot” sets are the backdrop for the grim fairy tale about a cold-blooded Chinese princess who has her would-be suitors beheaded — until one of them melts her heart.

Hockney’s scenic design, reminiscent of stark German Expressionist filmmaking with a dash of the backgrounds in Walt Disney’s “Fantasia,” is a virtuosic testament to the artist’s lifelong exploration of abstract figurative painting and his abiding love of opera.

“We’ve been trying to program Hockney’s ‘Turandot’ for 30 years,” said Rupert Hemmings, vice president of artistic planning for L.A. Opera, which commissioned Hockney sets for the operas “Tristan and Isolde” and “Die Frau Ohne Schatten.” “The task is always to create something that audiences come for. It could be the soprano or the director. Here, it’s Hockney, who created a visionary work of art that the opera happens within.”

Among the grandest of grand operas, “Turandot” is a demanding enterprise.

“There are 342 people in the cast and crew, 95% of whom are union,” Hemmings said. “To work with an 86-piece orchestra and to cast, clothe, rehearse, corral and pay 128 performers is expensive, and to protect their voices, we can only play twice a week.” With a seating capacity of 3,100 for each of six performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he added, “it won’t even be break-even.”

In addition to the cost of personnel, L.A. Opera has spent $80,000 to rent the production assets — the props, Hockney’s sets and costumes by Ian Falconer, the writer and illustrator of the popular “Olivia” series of children’s books — from the San Francisco Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which commissioned the “Turandot” designs 34 years ago.

Having created opera sets since 1975, including 18 months of work on L.A. Opera’s “Tristan and Isolde” in 1987, Hockney took on the “Turandot” commission with fierce opinions. In his 1993 autobiography, “That’s the Way I See It,” he wrote, “I had seen many productions of ’Turandot,’ most of them kitsch beyond belief, overdone Chinoiserie, and too many dragons. … For the first scene, the city of Peking, I suggested that we take the dragons away and put them into the roofs, in forms that felt like dragons.” The result is a strikingly fantastical depiction of the city now known as Beijing, using, Hockney added, “harsh edges, strong diagonals, mad perspectives.”

According to Drew Landmesser, former deputy general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Hockney — who moved to Los Angeles in 1964 — transformed a tennis court on his Hollywood Hills property into a work studio. Unlike other designers, who typically create set models at a scale of a quarter-inch or half-inch per foot, Hockney built a “ginormous platform with models so large that he could crawl around them to explore the space and how people would move in it.”

Workers move giant “Turandot” set pieces backstage for the second act during a rehearsal.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The artist also installed his own lighting system to ensure accurate representation of the intense colors he chose for his set pieces, which include red exterior facades that soar to 30 feet and a scrim accented with jade green and royal blue painted on seamless canvas that stretches 60 feet across the stage.

After two years of development, translating measurements for construction of the “Turandot” sets took six weeks of computer work. The sets, props and costumes cost around $1 million to produce, said Landmesser, a “not disproportionately large investment” shared by the Chicago and San Francisco companies and amortized through rentals. (That production figure does not include fees paid to the creative team, including Hockney, costume designer Falconer and the lighting and stage directors.) Since 1992, the sets have been used more than a dozen times across the U.S. and in Naples, Italy.

During a visit to rehearsals last week — as lead tenor and artist-in-residence Russell Thomas repeatedly banged an enormous gong, signifying the end of Act 1 — Hemmings and L.A. Opera technical director Jeff Kleeman described the labor-intensive process of mounting the show.

“The level of detail to produce and resource it properly takes months and months of analysis,” said Kleeman, who pores over renderings made with computer-aided design software to adapt Hockney’s design for the L.A. Opera stage and establish placement of scenic elements and lighting in what is known as a composite ground plan.

“Act by act, piece by piece, we make it fit,” he said.

The sets, which San Francisco Opera pays to store in a warehouse in Modesto, were broken down into “thousands of pieces and fit together like Tetris to reduce damage and fit into three 53-foot trailer trucks with eight-foot ceilings,” Kleeman said. Upon the sets’ arrival in L.A., his 64-strong stage crew spent five 10-hour days in three teams, sorting the pieces for each act of the opera, assembling them, making necessary repairs and positioning some 800 lights.

“The sets are what we call soft walls,” Kleeman noted, “made from wood with fabric coverings. These days, sets are constructed with steel and plywood, which are heavier and more durable. Soft walls weigh less and are cheaper to build, but after a couple of uses and trips in the truck, they tend to get worn.” Enter the scenic painters, who custom-blend and color-match Hockney’s highly saturated hues to touch up the sets and create a board lined with pieces of painted tape for quick patches before or during a performance.

Intermissions in the show last 20 to 25 minutes, to allow the 43 members of the wardrobe, wig and makeup crew to prepare performers for the next act and the stage crew to roll pre-built sets into position. About one-third of the scenery is “gripped,” Kleeman said, meaning pieces are carried onstage and assembled by carpenters. “It sounds chaotic,” he added with a smile. “Everything needs to be placed exactly where it should be, in a highly choreographed way, and with each rehearsal we refine the approach. So as big as it all seems, it becomes a routine.”

Workers move pieces of a roof during a set change.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Technical director Jeff Kleeman during rehearsal in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

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The towering sets are more than just spectacle, senior design manager Carolina Angulo said. “The use of forced perspective and oversize proportions unconsciously leads the audience to think about the characters’ place in this world and to feel their emotions.”

In presenting the San Francisco Opera Medal to Hockney in 2017, General Director Matthew Shilvock cited the artist for his impact on the art form.

“His productions are bold expressions of archetypal emotions, deeply rooted in a strong sense of spatial resonance and scale,” Shilvock said. “He finds rhythm in color and design and creates portals that we enter with thrilling excitement.”

Hemmings concurred, calling Hockney’s “Turandot” a provocative conceptual design that remains timeless.

“A lot of opera sets last for more than 30 years,” he noted. “If this ‘Turandot’ got to the point of it being worn out, someone would rebuild it. You would never get rid of it. That would be like throwing a David Hockney painting away.”

A “Turandot” set piece has hand-written notations about which act it’s for.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“You will be punished for your guilt”

The movie begins with a black screener, while what seems to be a newscaster is reporting a work-related accident that led to the death of two workers. It turns out that the sound is coming from the car radio of a man who is parked in an area where he is looking for a specific house he was asked for by a wealthy lady, along with another man, his assistant, Seong-tae. The area is in Daegu, within a forest and includes houses of traditional style. The two discuss various matters, from whether the boss, Yong-bae, is sick and the assistant’s knack for buying lottery tickets, when their employer appears.

She carries with her a jar sealed with what seem to be scrolls and eventually begins something that looks like an intense ritual. The weather suddenly changes, her eyes turn white, and upon the ending of the ritual, a boy appears, which the woman immediately orders to go to work. The boy opens a door which the lady states is the Door to Heaven and then disappears. She then asks from Yong-bae to go inside and check if there is white light there, offering him a huge amount of money. Yong-bae send his money-loving assistant in, for half the money. While Seong-tae is there, the woman reveals what this thing is all about. Eventually, something seems to go wrong.

Although not exactly clear, it seems there is a parallel between what is being said in the intro and what happens later with Kim Gyu-tae, which results in a comment about how the rich and higher ups exploit the workers and the poor, with promises about money, not caring whether they live or die essentially. That the higher up the chain the worse people are and vice versa is also highlighted. The concept of the title also seems to have some significance here, as the rich are portrayed to look for things like eternal life and the poor for a way to be comfortable when they grow old, with money here being what connects the two, although in opposite terms: the poor are constantly in search for it and the rich exploit the fact by offering it to achieve their goals.

This aspect, however, is very difficult to realize, particularly since the nature of the movie moves more towards a supernatural horror film than a social drama, and the comment and the metaphor that communicates it, are barely visible. On the other hand, as a genre movie, “Heaven’s Door” works quite well, creating an atmosphere of disorientation that gradually turns into terror, in the most entertaining fashion. To achieve that, the cinematography by Jang Eun-woo, the editing by Kim Gyu-tae himself and An Ho-sung’s sound come together in the most impressive way, communicating the horror and the dramatic direness of what is happening quite impactfully.

Also of note here is the acting by Song Ah-gyoung, who plays the femme fatale with gusto, emitting a sense of mystery, danger, and a tad of sensualism from every movement.

Kim Gyu-tae has some interesting ideas, like using genre filmmaking to make social comments, while he evidently knows how to create a captivating atmosphere. At the same time, however, the 28 minutes of the short are definitely not enough for his ambitious purpose, with the first past getting almost completely lost. Hopefully, if he gets the opportunity to shoot a feature in the future, he will be able to achieve his goal in much better fashion, as he seems to have the knack for it.