Jump scares in a murder mystery? That's unusual, but "A Haunting in Venice" is
a crossover between murder mysteries and horror films. It's based on the
Agatha Christie novel "Halloween Party". This is one of the few Agatha
Christie novels that hasn't been filmed before. It's because it was considered
one of her weakest books. To improve it, the location of the film was set in
Venice instead of London. The eerie atmosphere of the Venice canals is a
definite improvement, distracting from the weakness of the plot.
Hercule Poirot has retired and is living in Venice, turning down all requests
to solve murders. His friend the author Ariadne Oliver asks him to visit a
seance. An opera singer wants to speak to her dead daughter to ask why she
committed suicide a few months earlier. Hercule doesn't believe that it's
possible to speak to the dead, so he visits the seance with the intention to
uncover the medium as a fraud. But then the medium is killed, and the
investigation begins.
The film has been highly praised, but I couldn't relate to it. I'm not a fan
of murder mysteries. The long monologue in which the ex-detective explained
what had happened and who was guilty bored me. I would have preferred a fully
fledged horror film.
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