A Haunting in Venice (2023)

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A Haunting in Venice (AKA Halloween Party Remix or, How Poirot Got His Groove Back) is a spooky Agatha Christie mystery signed Kenneth Branagh that Agatha fans will probably condemn it for being inspired by the original story, but changing everything about it. Personally, I think that's fair play when dealing with one of the lesser known mysteries. Branagh's Poirot isn't quite as eccentric in this one as he was in the others, currently retired and suffering from PTSD. His old friend - and Agatha Christie stand-in - Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) means to shake him out of it and invites him to a seance he can debunk. And of course there are murders, both past and present, to solve. It's really played as a spooky ghost story, with strange visions, a decaying house (did the Ushers ever own it?), creepy shots of birds and sinful apples and such, but surely, there's a reasonable explanation for all this. Branagh and Fey are funny together. A lot of the characters are mirrors of Poirot's own aspects since this is really about him suffering from a personal crisis and reconnecting with himself. As usual for this film series, the mechanics of the drawing room reveal are iffy, this time seeming rather abrupt. It's gonna get some slack for literary inaccuracy, but I thought it a fine seasonal entertainment. 1 week 3 days ago

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