When there’s something strange in your midcentury gathering of exotic strangers, who you gonna call? Hercule Poirot’s latest jaunt on the big screen might see him doing a little more ghostbusting than the usual talky, intricate murder mysteries for which the Agatha Christie hero is so beloved. With director and star Kenneth Branagh flaunting the moustache once again, A Haunting In Venice is likely to be just as much of a thrill as Murder On The Orient Express and Death on the Nile.
Here’s the top 12 things we reckon you ought to know about this newest, Italy-set whodunnit, from its eerie tone to the reliably famous faces we’re investigating this time around. No spoilers here, obviously: we’ll leave it to you to solve this grim case once A Haunting In Venice hits cinemas.
1. It’s based on Hallowe’en Party—not a particularly well-loved Christie book
1969’s Hallowe’en Party was the 31st of Agatha Christie’s mysteries to feature the brilliant Belgian detective Poirot. Critics at the time were “disappointed” and “disinterested” by its tale of a seance gone terribly wrong in a sleepy English town, claiming that the story was littered with loose ends and a poorly executed ending. In recent years, though, Poirot expert Mark Aldridge has stepped up to defend the novel, calling it “a highly memorable and intriguing novel that makes a lasting impression on the reader”.
Whatever didn’t work for 1960s literary critics might polish up nicely in Branagh’s film adaptation, with the action transplanted to the dark glamour of Venice’s labyrinthine canals and palazzos.
2. Haunting has a spookier tone than the last two Poirot movies
The first film version of Hallowe’en Party still seems to centre around a supernatural seance that spirals into real, murderous intrigue: “a ghost killed her!”, one participant claims in the movie’s trailer above. We get a few glimpses of ghostly Venetian masks and a bathroom jump-scare, clearly proving that we’ve come a long way from the more traditional settings of Orient Express and Nile.
Those films took Poirot from a chilly trans-European train voyage to the sunlit beauty of a river cruise, but this time around his investigations are flavoured with Gothic horror elements. Branagh has said that the film will not be an outright horror movie, instead being a “supernatural thriller” that chilled the director right from when he first read returning writer Michael Green’s script.
3. Branagh’s Poirot is now retired and questioning his faith
Death On The Nile was set in 1937, after an opening flashback revealed Poirot’s grim past as a soldier in World War One. Another devastating world war later, we rejoin the detective in post-WWII Italy, after he’s already been retired for a decade. In these funereal, potentially haunted times, “the normal rules do not apply”, as Branagh explained to Empire. “Along the way [Poirot] has lost friends”, the British filmmaker says: “We know from his past that his experience in the war has also isolated him. So I think he is no longer a believer. He’s a man whose confidence and composure has been rocked by the intense and scary pressure that his life has put him under.”
4. Tina Fey is Ariadne Oliver: Poirot’s mystery-loving friend
The 30 Rock writer and star is a capable match for Poirot’s hawkeye intellect, dragging him into the disastrous Venice seance to “spot the con [she] can’t”. Appearing in seven of Christie’s original Poirot novels, the recurring character is often considered the author’s self-insert, as Ariadne herself is a writer of murder-mystery novels. But could she be blurring fact and fiction? In the trailer above, even she comes under her bestie’s magnifying lens, telling him “don’t look at me like I’m a suspect, we’re old friends!” Poirot wisely retorts that “every murderer is someone’s old friend”. He’s got you there, gal.
5. The stars of Branagh’s film Belfast play father and son again
Back in 2021, Belfast was a heartwarming international hit, reframing Branagh’s own childhood as a universal tale of a 1960s family confronting change. Jude Hill and Jamie Dornan raked in acclaim for their roles as a wee Irish laddy and his conflicted dad respectively, so it’s only natural that their director would rope them into this newest ensemble-driven mystery. Now in full colour after their gorgeous performances in that black-and-white drama, the pair play Dr. Leslie Farrier and his son Leopold. Branagh told The Hollywood Reporter that their “rapport and camaraderie…had a really positive effect on the rest of the cast”. D’awww.
6. Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh is psychic medium Joyce Reynolds
Fresh off her hot streak of winning a Best Actress Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All At Once, action movie legend Yeoh is keeping the mystical, metaphysical vibes flowing. In A Haunting In Venice, her psychic character channels the lost daughter of socialite Rowena Drake (Yellowstone‘s Kelly Reilly), speaking to the grieving mother in her daughter’s own voice.
Branagh has praised Yeoh’s supernatural performance in the film, saying that she “brings this great gravity to the role of someone who finds it possible and believes that they can talk to the dead”. In short, the total opposite of a grizzled cynic like Poirot. But hold up: does the movie’s trailer suggest Yeoh might also be our first victim? Here’s hoping she gets a good amount of screentime either way.
7. The movie began filming, appropriately enough, on Halloween night
How audacious that this most ooky and spooky of Poirot movies should begin shooting on October 31, 2022. It’s being released right as the year’s scariest season kicks off, too, with screenings of A Haunting In Venice continuing into October. Filming took place both on location in Venice and in London’s Pinewood Studios for select sets. While Christie’s text has been adapted previously into an episode of the much-loved David Suchet TV series, it’ll be the first time we see this sleuth vs. seance story on the big screen.
8. Hildur Guðnadóttir composed the film’s creepy score
Branagh typically collaborates with Scottish composer Patrick Doyle on the sound of his films, with the pair working together on everything from Ken’s debut Henry V to the first two Poirot adaptations. Despite this, the cellist and musician behind the sinister sounds of Joker and Chernobyl is taking over for Branagh’s spookiest mystery yet. Guðnadóttir will be a wonderful fit for the noticeably different, less traditional feel of this threequel…but we hope old buddies Doyle and Branagh are still on good terms.
9. Sir Ridley Scott returns as executive producer
Even at age 85, Sir Ridley is an insanely busy guy, helping Branagh bring his three Poirot adaptations to screen even as he’s hard at work on his upcoming biopic Napoleon. Each of the murder-mysteries are co-produced by Scott’s own company Scott Free Productions, perhaps explaining how these films have the clout to continually draw in big-name talents to flesh out their suspect list.
10. Christie’s novel made a sneaky cameo appearance in Oscar-winner Belfast
Here’s a nice case of serendipity for ya: in Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film Belfast, the character who represents the director’s mother opens her presents on Christmas Day to find, among other books, a copy of Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. Was this a cheeky hint to eagle-eyed viewers that the novel would be Branagh’s next Poirot adaptation? Apparently not, the Best Original Screenplay winner claims: his mother was merely a big Christie fan, so he asked Belfast‘s props department to include it “as an offering to the gods”, not yet knowing whether A Haunting In Venice would eventuate as his next Poirot project.
11. Branagh’s Poirot films keep surprising us at the box office
You’d think that Branagh’s trio of old-school murder mysteries couldn’t stack up to the Marvels and DCs of our cinematic-universe-driven times—and yet the humble Christie adaptations have consistently punched above their weight in cinemas and when released onto streaming services. Death on the Nile was released into a particularly challenging 2022 market, embroiled in multiple controversies surrounding stars Armie Hammer and Letitia Wright. But it still made a respectable $130 million worldwide, and Branagh was pleased that the sequel’s “streaming performance was really exceptional”. Turns out a combo of famous new faces and a classic whodunnit format keeps audiences coming back for more.
12. That trademark ‘stache is as bushy and glorious as ever
Real question: is Kenneth Branagh just making these movies as an excuse to show off his impressive facial hair powers? That finely-styled handlebar lewk basically deserves top billing in his Poirot movies, and the director has claimed that its grooming actually changes a little with each franchise entry. “He’s pretty open about his vanity and about his relationship to hair dye”, Branagh says of his classic character. “He, I think, would go through seasons of fashion in terms of quite how exotic the moustache was.”
Branagh even says that this film’s setting is a uniquely perfect platform for cinema’s most marvellous mo. “If ever a man with a mask-like moustache had a city he was meant to be in, it’s Venice. That moustache is protection: it empowers him, it puts other people off, it allows him to hide, wry and rueful, behind it.”
Sir Kenneth Branagh's Poirot loves two things:
➼ His own massive moustache
➼ Portentous smoke clouds containing names of many famous people pic.twitter.com/BS7u2781xA— Ali Plumb (@AliPlumb) August 19, 2020
In a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Branagh’s co-star Jamie Dornan even admitted to feeling “very insecure and inferior” during the filming of A Haunting In Venice…because Branagh’s mighty lip foliage was so “unbelievable”. Poor Jamie—not all of us are strong enough to serve dandy, luscious, Ned Flanders realness right under our noses.
