Haunt 1!  Haunt 2! Hike! We are hiking steadily through the month of October. We move on to :”Haunt 2”, one of two relatively recent movies with the root word “Haunt” in the title.  And here we are, across the Atlantic, in post World War 2 Italy, enjoying the creepy nights in Venice, riding the gondolas in the moonlight through the web of canals, floating past water-logged villas and palazzos.  At least one of these palazzos is reportedly haunted. Hence we have “A Haunting in Venice”.

At the time of posting, A Haunting in Venice is still in the theaters. That’s refreshing. Thinking that EVERYTHING in movie-theater land would be sacrificed at the altar of Taylor Swift and her eucharistic experience that is Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour film, which premiered this past weekend, I made sure my ass was in the theater watching this film before the Swift Second Coming (first coming the concert, second coming the film). My older sister joined me.  It was nice. Hi Roxy!  

Turns out, there are still other movies one can see that don’t involve this modern-day pop diva. The horror movies are out there. Many Chicago theaters run classic horror films. Then there are at least two horror films that have premiered this month, both of which are sequels to classic horror movies.  The Exorcist: Believer and Saw X. And…both of them suck poo-poo, at least according to the reviews (I have not seen them).  So it seems that the best modern film to get your Halloween fix would be A Haunting in Venice. Though it is not a horror film (it’s genre= Crime/mystery), it takes place on Halloween, it is deeply submerged in spookiness, it introduces viewers to a Venetian-style  Italian haunted house, and it just might have a ghost or two booing around. Or not.  It’s a mystery.

But make haste!  This film premiered mid September. I foresee it disappearing before Halloween week as movies such as this with a modicum of success tend not to stay in theaters for more than a month. 

I suppose there are several ways one can rank this film and evaluate its quality. According to wikipedia,   it is loosely based on a 1969 Agatha Christie Novel: Hallowe’en Party. It is one of several films to feature  director/actor Kenenth Branagh as “Hercule Poirat”, detective and solver of murder mysteries.  Hercule Poirat is a prominent character in Agatha Christie fiction, appearing in 33 of her novels  

Thus, one can compare the most recent Agatha Christie movies-turned-film. Roxy says she prefers Death on the Nile, and Murder on the Orient Express  to A Haunting in Venice.  Perhaps it is the least of the three films of Kenneth Branagh. I haven’t seen them, nor have I read Hallowe’en Party.  In fact, I haven’t read anything by Agatha Christie. I’m an AC virgin!  But maybe an avid reader of the Christie chronicles can explain everything that every filmmaker gets wrong when attempting to translate her work from page to screen. I cannot. Likewise, I am not an expert on the mystery genre in general. I barely know how to play the game Clue. So I cannot compare it to other whodunit flicks.

What I can do is apply my criteria for what makes an effective haunted house film to A Haunting in Venice and see if that affects my overall liking of the movie.  I will do that.  Apply! Apply! Apply!  Results: I like this film.

Hercule Poirat has retired in Venice, but mysteries go on, even in his own retirement sanctuary. He is called to observe a séance, set to take place on Halloween night at a palazzo where a young girl supposedly threw herself out the window several years prior. It also happens to be the same locale of a former orphanage, where many children were abandoned to the deadly clutches of the Plague.  The surviving mother seeks to reconnect with her deceased daughter.  Several people are in attendance and it is Poirat’s job to debunk the medium who performs the séance.  

The séance ensues and several scary things happen. Later on the same evening, someone has been murdered inside the palazzo.  Poirat locks everyone inside; no one is leaving until he solves the murder mystery. A guaranteed creepy night awaits as our humble detective is subjected to some terrifying encounters, possibly even ghosts!

As mentioned earlier, I am not a mystery buff. Scooby-Doo is more my speed when it comes to this stuff. So I wasn’t deeply entrenched into the whole whodunit theme. Much of the plot concerning who all the characters were and why they were at the séance was lost on me, as the characters often spoke in heavy accents. There were no subtitles for guidance.  So I just sat back in my reclining theater chair and took in all the atmospherics.

The black sky. The storm. Waves crashing into the wooden poles that surround the palazzo. The creepy projection show for the kids. Tall doorway arches.  Long halls and high ceilings. Statues with lifelike faces. Old time pendulum clocks. Crashing chandeliers. Flickering lights and shadows. Arcane camera angles

The mood is right. The performances are solid. Though technically not a horror movie, A Haunting in Venice is a haunted house movie and a good one at that. Not the best of all HH films, just as it probably isn’t the best mystery film.  However it is satisfying and capable of fulfilling one’s urge for some Halloween chills.