Hercule Poirot is the central figure in 33 novels, 2 plays, and over 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 by Agatha Christie. At the end of the 1980s, all the works were recorded for the great series of the Belgian detective, which aired on British television and which you can find on YouTube, with the wonderful David Suchet. In cinema, stars like Peter Ustinov, Albert Finney, and even John Malkovich brought Poirot to life, but it is director Kenneth Branagh who is the “current” holder of the role. And he arrives at his third feature with A Haunting in Venice, which opens a month before Halloween.

For Christie’s readers, there is a paradoxical element: the story is based on the short story Hallowe’en Party, but it is almost a quote only, the plot is original and very different. Oops, sorry to anyone who knows the culprit because it’s a spoiler to warn that it’s not the same. That is, it is an invitation to use Poirot’s traditional formula to arrive at “who killed” following logic. I got it right, but because I’m really “trained”, it can certainly surprise me. And before you complain about the “heresy”, the great-grandson of Agatha Christie is one of the producers and approved the changes. Having a “new” Poirot works for him, and for us.

The film begins 10 years after Death on the Nile, and Poirot is “retired”, living in Venice, still pessimistic and bitter after dealing with the collective vengeance of the culprits in Murder on the Orient Express and the greed of the murderers in Death on the Nile. Everything is going well until, on the eve of Halloween, he is ‘summoned’ out of his self-imposed exile when his friend, writer Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), asks for his help in exposing a hoax of séances led by the witch. medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh). Intrigued by the proposal, he accepts and, in the decaying and haunted palazzo of the famous opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), Poirot is faced not only with a series of murders, but will have to surrender to the thesis of curses and spirits or follow the path bet of logic and rational.

Kenneth Branagh is a director who excels in suspense and drama narrative and in A Haunting in Venice, he flirts with psychological terror exquisitely. With an exquisitely well-filmed Venice, he uses and abuses dark interiors, candlelight, and a stormy night to take us on a dark and occasionally scary journey. The original short story that forms the basis of the film was first published in 1969, but there are hints of other Christie short stories that tackle the supernatural, such as The Last Seance. Just like Ariadne (her alter ego) Poirot, Agatha Christie was skeptical and took pleasure in ‘debunking’ mediums and spiritualists and Branagh manages to balance the doubts in the right tone.

One of the highlights of the film is precisely another change in the director. In almost all of his films, the soundtrack is signed by his friend and award-winning composer, Patrick Doyle, but A Haunting in Venice is signed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, Oscar winner for Joker and one of the most requested of the moment. Hildur, a praised cellist, is vital to the mood and outcome of the film, with melodies that accentuate the tension and mental confusion of the characters. Another bet for the “new” that seems right in a film superior to Death on the Nile and that signals a new possibility in the franchise with Branagh.

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