Kenneth Branagh returns to the role of Hercule Poirot for A Haunting in Venice, a 2023 mystery-horror outing set among the canals and crumbling palazzos of postwar Venice.
What is A Haunting in Venice about?
Years after retiring, Poirot is living quietly in self-imposed exile when an old friend talks him into attending a séance inside a decaying Venetian palazzo said to be haunted. What starts as a skeptical night out turns urgent the moment one of the guests is killed during the gathering, and the detective finds himself pulled back into the work he thought he had left behind. Cut off from the outside world by a storm and a house full of secrets, Poirot has to sort genuine unease from theatrical trickery as he questions a small circle of guests, each with a private reason to want the truth buried. The film leans into the eerie atmosphere of the setting as much as the puzzle itself, letting the palazzo's history and the seance's staging blur the line between rational investigation and something stranger.
About the cast
Kenneth Branagh directs and stars as Poirot, with Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, and Emma Laird filling out the guests and household caught up in the case.
Context & significance
Part of the film series adapted from Agatha Christie's Poirot novels, A Haunting in Venice draws on the character's established methods of close observation and interrogation while placing him in unusually gothic, storm-bound surroundings that lean the franchise toward horror more directly than a typical drawing-room mystery.
Watching A Haunting in Venice on Ktime
A Haunting in Venice is available on K-Time with both Persian dub and Persian subtitles, giving viewers the choice of listening in Farsi or reading along in their own language. Streaming requires only a free K-Time account login, and the platform's Farsi-language interface makes browsing and watching straightforward for the Iranian diaspora audience.