A Haunting in Venice

A perfect film for spooky season it seems. A Haunting in Venice was released in October and though the trailer did not give anything away really as far as plot was concerned the draw for me was Michelle Yeoh’s presence. And it is an Oscar contender so here we go with the review of A Haunting in Venice.

For those who are unfamiliar with Pirot stories, the premise of this movie is that a detective and mystery writer team up to bust a psychic for being fake, on Halloween.

This sweet little boy is me! He’s reading Edgar Allen Poe while a party happens around him and it's great. Tina Fey is actually pretty good in this movie. I’m not gonna lie, I was very skeptical about her ability to do something more serious. But she actually did very well.

I don’t really know how I feel about the cinematography. There are shots that seem to be meant to convey a level of disorientation or confusion but they don’t seem to match the tone or content of the scenes they're used in.

When we actually get to the seance, Pirot of course does his detective thing and reveals the tricks that the medium was using. However the medium then seems to be possessed by the spirit of the dead girl who claims her death was murder instead of suicide. This sequence of rain and spinning and doors bursting open was really well done. It communicated chaos, fear, and confusion.

The group decides to stay so that the medium can continue to try and communicate with the dead girl. Pirot, who is trying to figure out how the medium is a fake, is almost drowned and the medium is killed.

This is where the single room mystery comes in. The spirits of orphan children live in the house. They call it the children’s vendetta. Pirot locks the group in the house until he figures out who murdered the medium and also the young girl. Of course locking everyone in the house has some very The Shining like effects on people. Tempers are short and emotions run high, especially with the idea of one of them being a murderer. This little boy is like a parent to his father who is clearly struggling with PTSD. Alicia’s fiance does not seem super concerned that she’s dead and I can’t tell if he’s the killer or if he’s just a dick.

The final reveal was done really well, with black and white flashbacks to show the audience how the crimes were committed. It felt very classic literature like, very comforting, very familiar.

If you like the Knives Out movies then this is perfect for you. It's a classic murder mystery and honestly I am glad we are getting more of these. They are fun to watch and the audience gets to try and figure out who done it along with the detective. I love self contained stories, it feels like too many things are a series or franchise now. Especially properties that just don’t need to be. And I really love chamber pieces, stories that take place in a single location. I think it can be an amazing exercise in screenwriting and it makes the story almost entirely reliant on character which as we know is the best way to tell a story. I give it a 7/10. It was nothing profound but it was a good story and all of the elements came together pretty well. There was the occasional shot that I felt was out of place and I don’t really think there's much of a rewatchability factor here. But if you like murder mysteries it's a good one.