Agatha Christie's moderate potboiler novel Hallowe'en Party gets transplanted to 1947 Venice, providing another sharp turn in mood and tone for the third of Kenneth Branagh's Poirot films and an interesting upgrade to the source material. Here, a hardened and weary retired Poirot (again played with wonderful precision by Branagh), living in Venice, is pressed by his famous crime-writing friend to attend and debunk a séance conducted by the renowned and convincing Mrs Reynolds (the magnificent Michelle Yeoh) at a haunted orphanage, but as a murder takes place and the party is locked in and stormbound, Poirot finds himself positioned to unveil the medium as a fraud and solve the murder. The mood of the film is very sombre and melancholy, the case itself is relatively simple (clues are obvious) but it is elegantly presented, and the film proves to be a sound technical exercise for director Branagh, full of noir-ish flourishes (Dutch angles, long shadows, very-high angle shots, unsettlingly-foregrounded close-ups). The film boasts another excellent ensemble cast, notably including Tina Fey as an excellent foil/side-kick to Poirot and Jamie Dornan as the war-haunted doctor. The film may he high on atmosphere yet low on real thrills, but it is very well-presented on all fronts and interesting to look at.
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