A Haunting in Venice
Hey everyone and welcome, Today we will be talking about the film A Haunting in Venice. Fun Fact, Poirot was created by Dame Agatha Christie’s and is in 33 of her novels and more than 50 short stories and was the first fictional character to have an obituary in the New York Times. This film came out in 2023 and stars Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, and Kelly Reilly and was directed by Kenneth Branagh. So without further ado let’s get right into it.
A Haunting in Venice follows a retired Hercule Poirot who gets invited to a seance to talk to the daughter of a woman who was supposedly killed by Ghost children. After the medium is murdered he once again puts on his detective hat to figure out who the killer is and finds out that this won’t be the only murder he will have to solve.
A Haunting in Venice is a thrilling whodunnit. It has similar vibes to Knives Out, Clue, or Murder on the Orient Express.
These Poirot whodunnit movies are always oh so interesting because I always think I’m a better detective than him and I can figure out who the killer is and I never can. These murder movies are interactive because they get the viewer in on the fun with them making up their own theories about who did the crime. This movie was kind of the reverse of the Murder on the Orient Express in terms of there being multiple murders and a single murderer instead of one murder with multiple murderers which I think caught me off guard because I thought there were going to be multiple killers. It was still fun to put together this puzzle as the movie went on.
One thing I learned in these movies is some of the biggest names in these movies die first which in this case was Michelle Yeoh. For a minute I wondered who it would be but she did open a can of worms by implying the daughter who died before the events in the movie was killed and didn’t commit suicide and that made her a target. It feels like the big names are to draw people in even though they won’t be in the movie long which might upset people but I think it’s an interesting tactic.
Venice was a cool place to film this and it being on the canals shows them really trapped and not being able to do much to escape the interrogation of Poirot. It’s cool how these films always find an isolated location or how there is a set of circumstances that prevent the potential suspects from leaving.
Like I said earlier I was convinced it was a killer for each person so I spent most of the film figuring out who were killers in this film and couldn’t figure out who were the killers for all only to find out it was Rowena. When it came to the doctor I immediately knew his killer because Rowena gave Poirot the only key and made sure we knew it was the only key in the house to that room.
This film tried to have more creepy vibes and while I think it’s creepier than the past films it wasn’t that scary. There was an attempt at a jump scare with a quick cut at the beginning of the film that I seemed like it was intended to scare the viewer but instead, I just noticed that its cut away to another scene was so slow and it wasn’t really that scary. To add to this spooky vibe Poirot is seeing a ghost which we come to find out is most likely because he’s being poisoned but it did add to the creepy vibes.
The lighting was cool and reminded me of old horror films especially where there’s a close-up of Poirot and like half of his face is lit to show the direction of the light and how there is a lack of it. I think the lighting of the movie was perfect to further immerse the viewer in this movie and add to the creepiness but to also show how in this time period lighting is something that’s not so easily available as it is in the present day.
I love how Poirot solves this murder but doesn’t turn in the other people who may be innocent of murder but are guilty of other things. Most of the things they are guilty of aren’t serious and Poirot figures they’ve been through enough and keeps it all to himself.
My favorite part of this movie is Poirot putting everything together to announce the killer. It’s a moment that solidified some of my guesses and made some connections to stuff I may have missed. It was interesting to see how his mind works and how he was able to put this all together to solve this crime.
A Haunting in Venice is a spooky murder mystery that will have you putting your detective work on. While I think it misses the mark on some of its jump scares and has some pacing issues, the story is an interesting one and the cast is great.
