Title – A Haunting in Venice (2023) 

Director – Kenneth Branagh (Death on the Nile) 

Cast – Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Kelly Reilly

Plot – Happily retired and living a quiet life in Venice, renowned detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) is invited to a local seance to debunk a suspected fraudster only to find himself embroiled in another murder mystery when the Halloween party he is at turns deadly. 

“You have a fabulous energy” 

Review by Eddie on 22/09/2023

Seemingly hellbent on a personal mission to grow the worlds most luscious moustache at any given opportunity and here gift us more Dutch tilts than we can poke a walking cane at, British director/actor Kenneth Branagh has once more delved back into the Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot universe for his third Poirot feature since 2017. 

Starting out with a bang at the box office with the star-studded Murder on the Orient Express and running out of stem with the stilted CGI infused and Covid-19 impacted Death on the Nile in 2022, Branagh here brings Christie’s Halloween Party to the big screen in the form of A Haunting in Venice, a Poirot film with a difference that benefits greatly from a great setting and a campy narrative that makes this arguably the best Branagh Poirot film yet, not that that’s an exactly glowing endorsement. 

Taking place over one fateful night in a late 40’s Venice property that finds a group of party guests involved in a seance that turns deadly, leading to Poirot hot on the case of a fresh murder and using his troubled mind to break the case open, Branagh and his talented cast have a lot of fun hamming it up in a wonderfully designed production that feels a lot more lived in than the past Branagh outings and one that excels when its creator starts to have fun with a range of quirky camera moves and production tricks that do a fair bit of work to cover up the fact this film and its narrative aren’t actually that exciting. 

What worked so well on page for many of Christie’s most famed works and those featuring the infamous facial hair sporting literary icon hasn’t exactly made for riveting feature film viewing and that is once more a problem with Haunting that after the initial rush and set-up early on falls into a more processional flow that closes in around Poirot and his long term author friend Ariadne Oliver (a nicely dialled back Tina Fey) as the two question guests of the seance gone wrong and we the viewers start to try and deliberate in our minds who is the most likely perpetrator of the death of Michelle Yeoh’s medium Mrs. Reynolds. 

Along for the ride this time around is also Jamie Dornan as troubled doctor Leslie Ferrier and Kelly Reilly as grieving mother Rowena Drake, once more making Haunting another Poirot outing that has a stacked cast at its disposal but despite everyone acquitting themselves well enough there’s no stand outs here in the ensemble, no one is really able to make their mark in a unique way, even if Branagh this time around does allow for Poirot to feel like more of a vulnerable and on edge human unlike his almost super-powered version in the first two films. 

Overall Haunting is a passable enough murder mystery with a location that feels like a character all unto itself but much like its previous ventures Branagh’s film still doesn’t feel like overly necessary cinema as it comes and goes without much reason to ever suggest it will be a feature spoken about in the years to come. 

Final Say – 

Thankfully a step up from the rather misguided Death on the Nile, A Haunting on Venice provides some fun and minor excitement at times but overall still feels like a rather pointless exercise that Branagh must feel is something much more. 

3 omnipresent Cockatoos out of 5