What’s It About
In post-World War II Venice, Poirot, now retired and living in his own exile, reluctantly attends a seance. But when one of the guests is murdered, it is up to the former detective to once again uncover the killer.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
The third time is not the charm. A Haunting in Venice moves at a snail’s pace while trying to invoke mystery into the untimely death of an opera singer’s daughter. This is the third film to feature Detective Hercule Poirot, but this time, he’s retired and living in Venice. His reputation as a great detective preceded him as tons of people wanted him to solve their cases. Unfortunately, Poirot is adamant and is content with his retirement until his good friend, Ariadne Oliver, convinces him to help her prove that a famous psychic, Joyce Reynolds, is a fraud. Once the detective arrived at the home in question, Poirot did his usual and assessed each character he came across as well as the home itself. When the psychic did arrive, she was questioned before, during, and after the “reading” that somehow surprised everyone in attendance. When it became more of a mystery than Poirot could deduce, he battled with doubts about his abilities and was forced to believe in the afterlife. The rest of A Haunting in Venice plays out as it should, with the detective using his skills to solve the case, but just like the two films before this one, the pace is slow and can drag along in multiple spots. It’s like they were reading the book it was based on as the story played out on screen, so yes, it was moving that slowly. In other words, if this was released fifty years ago, that’s four years after Agatha Christie’s murder mystery was published, the movie would have had a bigger impact cinematically. But this is 2023, and movies of this nature have been done so much better, i.e., Sherlock Holmes, Knives Out, Se7en. Because of the extremely slow pacing, A Haunting in Venice will only appeal to an older demographic looking to reminisce on the 50s nostalgic feeling this film provides.
OUR RATING – A SLOW 5
MEDIA
- Genre – Mystery
- Street date
- Digital – October 31st, 2023
- DVD/Blu-Ray – November 28th, 2023
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 1.85:1
- Sound – English: Dolby Atmos, English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1, French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1, Audio descriptive
- Subtitles – English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras
- Murder, Death, and Haunting (HD 26:08)
- Deleted Scenes (HD 11 Scenes 8:14 total)