A HAUNTING IN VENICE

Based loosely on Hallowe’en Party, one of Agatha Christies lesser known Poirot stories, A Haunting in Venice finds Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) at a low point, Retired, disenfranchised, and refusing to speak to anyone but his bodyguard and his baker. 

That is, at least, until an old friend, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), invites him to a seance. Not as a believer, but in an attempt to expose the medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) as a fraud.

His interest piqued, Poirot agrees to end his exile. 

Naturally the evening has a few surprises in store for our moustachioed sleuth.

It might be smaller in scale than the previous two entries, but A Haunting in Venice feels much larger in ambition. Taking a series which has, up to now, consisted of standard, if stylish, murder mysteries and wrapping it in a gothic horror ghost story.

It is a bold move, but one that absolutely pays off, delivering something which manages to be creepy and unsettling enough to set it apart from what came before, without ever slipping so far into horror that it would risk alienating its core audience.

The palazzo, in which 95% of the film takes place, is cold and decrepit, barely sheltering our cast from the storms outside. Its dark history serving just to increase the levels of anxiety and fear within.

As the bodies start falling it is up to Poirot to solve the case.

But this is not necessarily the case that fans of the source material might be expecting. Where Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile were both faithful retellings of Christies books, A Haunting in Venice is not. Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green may have used Hallowe’en Party as a jumping off point, but much of what occurs in the film is new.

And the mystery that they have conjured up is an engaging one. Whilst I did suspect the murderer early on, there was enough here to keep me guessing and doubting my instincts, much in the way the Poirot starts to doubt his own.

I used the word bold earlier, but it applies here as well. To take the work of an author so respected, and turn it into something new, takes bravery. It is a move that could have so easily backfired, but instead creates the best film of the series so far.

While there has been no official confirmation of any sequels, the Christie estate seems keen to keep making them, and it will be interesting to see what direction they go in in any future entries. 

The cast here is, as you may have come to expect, excellent, with a strong lead performance from Kenneth Branagh. He is someone who clearly loves playing the character and while, to me, Poirot will always be David Suchet, Branaghs interpretation of him is becoming iconic in its own right. 

He manages to portray the weight of Poirots past - the things he has seen and experienced - and his trauma, more than any other actor I’ve seen and this makes for something entirely different from what has come before. 

A Haunting in Venice is a ghost story that gives life to a franchise that seemed to be waining. And is proof that a filmmaker, especially one with Branaghs experience, should not be afraid to put their own stamp on the source material.

As we approach Halloween, anyone looking for a creepy, atmospheric thriller, could do an awful lot worse.