A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice (2023) is Branagh's third Poirot and it changes the register entirely: this is a horror film. Venice, 1947. Poirot has retired, speaks to nobody, and has a man at his door keeping people away. An old friend takes him out on Halloween night: a medium is holding a seance in an abandoned palazzo. He goes to expose her. Then somebody dies. The previous two films were large cast, sunlit, classical adaptations. This one is dark, narrow and uncomfortable. The camera sits at a tilt, the corridors are shot at tight angles, and there are jump scares. It is adapted from Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, but the connection is very loose; the setting, the period and most of the characters have been changed. The real question is Poirot himself. He believes only in reason and, after the war, struggles even with that. When a supernatural explanation is offered, both the audience and the character hesitate. Michelle Yeoh plays the medium and the seance is the best section. The running time is kept short and this is the tidiest film in the series. The earlier two are not required. It runs 103 minutes. Good for: murder mystery, gothic atmosphere, and Christie adaptations. Less good for: there are jump scares, it is unfaithful to the book, and the solution is simple.