The Only Agatha Christie Detective Thriller That Changed the Formula Is Officially Streaming

Published Aug 28, 2026, 9:41 PM EDT Mitchell Brown is a Wisconsin-based writer, film fanatic, and graduate of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has written for various publications covering film analysis, reviews (both classic and contemporary), and movie news. He's also a screenwriter, having written multiple spec scripts. When he's not watching movies, writing movies, or writing about the films he's already seen...no, that about covers it. Nothing says "Halloween" quite like a Hercule Poirot mystery. Except for maybe scary movies, jack-o-lanterns, trick or treating, or...well, literally anything else associated with the season. Agatha Christie's famous mustachioed crime solver popularized what we consider "whodunnit" stories, and is typically associated with high-brow mystery narratives. That's what makes the most recent adaption of Christie's work, A Haunting in Venice, stand out as an outlier. Because while it's a murder mystery that is very much cut from the same cloth as star/director Kenneth Branagh's previous (underrated) Christie adaptations, it rises above his two prior outings (though on the right day, you could argue any of the three are the best, Gal Gadot's performance in Death on the Nile not withstanding). He does this by shifting the genre of the series. A Haunting in Venice isn't a detective story...it's a horror film. Based on Christie's novel Hallowe'en Party, the story follows a retired Hercule Poirot (Branagh) as he becomes reacquainted with his old friend, novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), and joins her for a seance on Halloween night. The evening is run by medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), as she tries to converse with the ghosts of a supposedly haunted palazzo — specifically, the ghost of a young, deranged girl who tragically took her own life. However, the night takes a turn for the sinister when one of the guests involved with the seance is murdered, and Poirot takes it upon himself to find out who did it. But he has more than just a simple crime on his hands; he also has to contend with whether the threat he faces might actually be supernatural. From Whodunnit to Horror Image via Disney Branagh's outings as Poirot are warm and satisfying, the heated blankets of murder mysteries — thanks in large part to his affable and quirky performance in the role. While the third entry in a trilogy is often the weakest (with movies like Army of Darkness proving that a rule of thumb is meaningless if you just cut off the hand), A Haunting in Venice is considered by many to be the strongest of Branagh's films, largely due to the fact that it put the framework of a murder mystery in a horror film. (Considering that the inciting incident of said stories revolve around murder, it's weird that it's not done more frequently, outside the Scream franchise.) The genre shift is also noteworthy, since Branagh hadn't made a horror film since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein nearly two decades prior. You wouldn't know it though, considering that once the characters enter the palazzo and night falls, the film takes on a more gothic and unnerving aesthetic, with distorted wide shots and Dutch angles, simultaneously making the building look both imposing and claustrophobic. Much like Branagh, cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos doesn't have much experience in horror, but the camerawork and atmosphere feel so deliberate and purposeful, you'd think they both were genre experts. Paired with moments of disturbing imagery and a few well-placed (and not obnoxious) jump scares, it all feeds into Poirot's potential deteriorating mental state throughout the film. Hercule Poirot's Worldview is Challenged While all of Branagh's Poirot adventures serve as standalone stories, the benefit of having A Haunting in Venice as the third entry is that the viewer is acquainted with the character, who's consistent across all the mysteries. The main point in both previous entries is that everything is explainable and there's always a plausible culprit. Even when Poirot comes across road bumps while trying to identify the murderer, he always operates under the certainty that he can figure out who did it and why. So, when faced with unexplainable sights, like ghost girls wandering around and the sounds of ghost children singing in the walls, it tests the pragmatic and logical worldview that Poirot adheres to and that we as the audience are accustomed to expecting. This makes the haunting element more unnerving and the promise of a resolute solution less assured. A Haunting in Venice is a solid addition to Kenneth Branagh's portfolio of stories as Agatha Christie's famous detective, with the welcome addition of horror into the festivities. It lacks the human connection between Poirot and Bouc (Tom Bateman), which was the unspoken heart of the previous entries, with Bateman's charming and effusive performance being an underrated counterbalance to Poirot's quirkiness — but this absence works for the film, by adding to the sense of isolation. Poirot is on his own, both in the palazzo and in life at the start of the story. Besides that, the idea of Poirot locking himself in what's effectively a haunted house is a clever twist on the whodunnit formula, and with the added flair of the story taking place on Halloween night, it gives the film an added sense of ambiance. With Halloween season quickly approaching, if you're looking for another film to add to your watchlist, A Haunting in Venice is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Release Date September 15, 2023 Runtime 104 minutes Director Kenneth Branagh