Summary
- A Haunting in Venice is Kenneth Branagh's darkest Agatha Christie adaptation yet, featuring shocking and brutal deaths.
- Hercule Poirot solves the murders using real-world clues, but the film remains ambiguous about whether ghosts are real.
- Rowena Drake, who accidentally killed her daughter, is revealed to be the real culprit behind the murders, while the true blackmailer is Reynolds' son.
Spoilers for A Haunting in VeniceKenneth Brannagh's third Agatha Christie adaption, A Haunting in Venice, is the darkest one yet, as its horror aesthetic leads to some pretty shocking and brutal deaths. When Hercule Poirot is invited to a Halloween party and séance, things turn for the worse when a dead body is discovered, and Poirot is forced out of retirement to solve the case. There are four deaths in A Haunting in Venice, three of which are murders.
Through his incredible detective skills, Poirot solves the murders, and while the film ends on an ambiguous note about whether ghosts are real, the murders are solved by real-world clues. The deaths in A Haunting in Venice work like a domino effect, as the clues that lead to the first murder fill in the gaps for the others. It is a classic Agatha Christie mystery, where every death spins a long tale of clues as to who did it and why.
4 Alicia Drake
The most important death in A Haunting in Venice happens before the movie even starts. The young Alicia Drake accidentally overdosed on toxic honey that her mother, Rowena, was using to sudate her and maintain her control. Her housekeeper unknowingly gave her too much of the honey and killed her. A guilt-ridden Rowena covered her tracks by making the death look like the work of ghosts. Poirot puts this together because of a dug-up bed of rhododendron, the flower used to make the honey, as well as his own hallucinations that were brought up because of the toxin. This revelation becomes the key to the rest of the deaths.
3 Leslie Ferrier
The first murder to take place in the film is of Michelle Yoeh's spiritual medium Leslie Ferrier. While it looks as if a spirit pushed her onto a statue, the reality is much darker than that. When Poirot notes that the insanely wealthy Rowena Drake is having money troubles, he realizes it must because she is being blackmailed for what she did to her daughter. When Ferrier came to her Halloween party knowing seemingly too much about Alicia, Rowena assumed she was the blackmailer, and killed her to make it seem like she had angered the spirits.
2 Joyce Reynolds
Around halfway through the film, Joyce Reynolds is found stabbed in the back, however, he is in a locked room and Poirot has the only key. No one could have come in or out of the room, however, Reynolds was actually killed by a telephone. Poirot notes that the external phone lines were down, however, calls could still be made inside the house. Rowena called Reynolds on the internal line telling him to kill himself, or she would kill his son. Reynolds complies, making it look like a murder. Rowena assumed Reynolds may also be the blackmailer, as he was Alicia's doctor and could have known what she did.
For every murder in the film, the real culprit is Rowena Drake. While she accidentally poised her daughter, which led to her purposefully killing two other people, mistakenly thinking she was covering her tracks. The real blackmailer turns out to be Reynolds’ son, Leopold, as he is able to see what his father can't and tries to get some extra money from Rowena.
1 Rowena Drake
After Poirot correctly identifies Rowena as the murderer, she runs away to the rooftop, as Poirot tries to talk her down it appears as if the ghost of Alicia grabs her and pulls her to her death. Poirot, however, is skeptical of this, as he was still feeling the effects of the rhododendron honey, and could have imagined that as Rowena slipped from the rain. The film never gives a hard answer on what really happened on the rooftop, leaving it ambiguous if there really are vengeful spirits.
