GAL APPROVED! Diva Guy Hassan Wiggins’ A Haunting In Venice Review!
By Hassan Wiggins | September 15, 2023 | Entertainment
Dive into Diva Guy Hassan Wiggins’ A Haunting in Venice review, which opens on September 15.
As fall begins grasping our weather, culture and lives, the search for a film changes with the season. Picking the right movie is almost like picking the right meal: You need it to fit the time of year. Something light in the summer switches to something warm in the winter. The transition begins the fusion of our cinema taste buds as we look for something now ambiguous.
Film releases in the fall follow a similar trope of plots filled with ambiguity, suspense and mystery, an impact of the fall’s Halloween season, the main factor in our hunger for a suspenseful adventure in the theaters. The difficult part is finding a film that fits your taste.
Whether you’re a horror fanatic or a mystery enthusiast, your time at the theater can vary greatly. But what if you lie somewhere in the middle? Finding a movie that will challenge your mind in a game of comprehension and have you clutching the arm of your seat with a slight chill of fear might be easier this year than you would’ve anticipated. A Haunting in Venice proves to be the answer in the search for a blend of genres.
Here’s the story: Top-notch sleuth Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed the film) investigates a murder while attending a Halloween seance at a haunted palazzo in Venice, Italy. Simple, but the film stands above the cookie-cutter films you might usually find this time of year.
I found the film to be a full surprise and honestly, I was a bit afraid. The sound was amazing, and the cinematography was enjoyable. Undershoots, use of shadows and lightning and pan shots made it fun while standing on the horrors of the haunted hospital turned home in Venice. Riddled with plot twists and dialogue hints, you’d never expect who could be behind the mystery of the passing of newly-wed Mrs Drake. Notions of wealth, jealousy and passion all come into play during the film, leaving the audience thinking with room for personal input. That’s what was important for me.
A fruitful cast of familiar and unfamiliar faces brings life into the theater and potentially even death, though it remains a mystery. Delivering a cast rich in diversity and style was genius for blossoming a “jack of all trades” mystery that we are desperate to indulge in. Women like Michelle Yeoh, the first Asian woman to win the Best Actress Oscar, which she did at the 2023 Academy Awards ceremony, who is known for delivering truthful performances filled with emotion, as we saw in Everything Everywhere All At Once. So many personalities blended well, more than you’d think they would.
With a fairly short run time of 1 hour and 47 minutes, there is a ton of film to satisfy the viewer. For my A Haunting in Venice review, I went in totally blind, with no trailer or insight on what I was getting myself into. This is how you should watch the film for the first time.
To experience A Haunting In Venice, you must blindly enter its aura and tone, for this is a surprise. Without giving anything away—no plot points, ideas or my overall takeaway—it’s the ideal fall film to set the season and a proper start in the theaters.
Some films are a smooth, scary watch that’s easy on the mind, like Scream 6, or intense enough to leave you sunken when the credits roll, similar to Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid. A Haunting in Venice finds its rhythm in the middle: scares, shocks and questions run rapidly during the film, a perfect blend of dense and smooth.
I understand if you aren’t yet intrigued and need more to get you into the theater to see the mystery unravel in A Haunting in Venice. Picking a film is serious work, after all. I recommend watching the trailer if my word isn’t enough.
Experiences are what the theater is meant for, and this film isn’t afraid to give the viewer a run for its money. I found myself laughing alongside the other emotions I felt there. The implementation of quirks that make any genre enjoyable is why this movie works so well for me. It surpasses the season’s tropes, becoming a film meant for viewers all year round.
Photo credit: 20th Century Studios
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