What is the purpose of a whodunnit for those who already know whodidit? That was the large query that hung over Kenneth Branagh’s first two Hercule Poirot films.

In Murder On The Orient Express (2017) and Death On The Nile (2022), actor-director Branagh freshened up two of Agatha Christie’s most well-known novels with a extra three-dimensional Belgian detective. But the plots have been virtually fatally acquainted.

A Haunting In Venice was impressed by Christie’s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party, however this time solely the event and some character names survive from the ebook.

There’s additionally a marked change in ambiance. The first two have been set within the glamorous, brightly lit world of Nineteen Thirties journey.

A spooky vitality pervades the third as Poirot’s rationality is shaken throughout an eventful night time in a dingy haunted home.

It’s 1947, 10 years after the occasions of Death On the Nile, and Branagh’s fastidious detective is lured out of retirement by visiting novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey).

Opera diva Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) is holding a Halloween seance at her spooky palazzo, a former orphanage rumoured to deal with the ghosts of younger plague victims.

Ariadne, determined for materials for a brand new novel, challenges the well-known detective to debunk the work of visiting medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh).

Poirot rapidly rumbles the psychic. But, when a homicide is dedicated and creepy voices echo down the corridors, he orders the gates to be locked whereas he engages his “little grey cells”.

Among the worldly suspects are a Bible-thumping housekeeper (Camille Cottin), an anguished physician (Jamie Dornan) and his creepily precocious son (Belfast star Jude Hill).

Horror nuts may discover it a bit tame however Christie followers ought to welcome a recent guessing sport and devilish twists to the traditional components.

A Haunting in Venice, Cert 12A, is in cinemas now