A Haunting of Venice: a Gothic horror, supernatural, Agatha Christie murder mystery which all becomes quite camp
Agatha Christie regularly drew upon the supernatural to generate a feeling of uncertainty.
- Agatha Christie regularly drew upon the supernatural to generate a feeling of uncertainty.
- We – the audience, and the ensemble of characters – are given limited information regarding a murder.
- Witchcraft is a red herring in Murder is Easy, Endless Night and The Pale Horse.
Embracing the Gothic
- There is a long history to Christie adaptations engaging with horror and Gothic aesthetics.
- Ghostly visions appear in And Then There Were None; the witches in The Pale Horse really do have supernatural powers; Ordeal by Innocence embraces many Gothic tropes, such as the dark, terror-filled, isolated mansion.
Being haunted in Venice
- In A Haunting in Venice, Kenneth Branagh continues this tradition of adapting Christie through the lens of horror.
- This child had proclaimed that she had once witnessed a murder, only for no one to believe her.
- Branagh relocates this mystery to Venice, where Oliver (Tina Fey) asks the retired Poirot to attend a séance at a grand old Palazzo.
- So, too, are all the guests haunted by their pasts, with the film being relocated from 1960s England to 1947 Venice, many characters are still shaken by the horrors of the second world war.
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Leaping into the fantastic
- The fantastic is an interesting space for a whodunit, which is fundamentally about rational explanations.
- And yet, as with all whodunits, no amount of fantastic atmosphere can save a film when the reveal just isn’t that ingenious or exciting.
- Read more:
Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile seems to forget Agatha Christie was a master of the murder mystery