A Haunting In Venice is about as chilling as your average caffe latte: BRIAN VINER savages Kenneth Branagh's new film

A Haunting In Venice Verdict: Clunky melodrama Rating: Bolan's Shoes Verdict: Platform for excellence Rating: The question that shimmered over Kenneth Branagh's last movie adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel, 2022's Death On The Nile, was not so much whodunnit as why-make-it? Still, in fairness to Branagh, Venice isn't a bad backdrop for a creepy story and his film carries some distinct echoes of Nic Roeg's 1973 classic Don't Look Now. Most of the action takes place in the creepy palazzo, said to house an ancient curse called 'the children's vendetta' According to Poirot's lugubrious Italian bodyguard, every dwelling in Venice is said to be either 'haunted or cursed' Venice isn't a bad backdrop for a creepy story and his film carries some distinct echoes of Nic Roeg's 1973 classic Don't Look Now Poirot has no intention of getting back to work until his American crime-novelist friend Ariadne Oliver turns up to tell him that Venice isn't the only 'gorgeous relic slowly sinking into the sea'. Poirot has no intention of getting back to work until his American crime-novelist friend Ariadne Oliver turns up to tell him that Venice isn't the only 'gorgeous relic slowly sinking into the sea' Psychic Joyce Reynolds is engaged by a grieving mother to contact her dead daughter Grieving mother, Rowena Drake, asks a psychic to contact her dead daughter, Alicia, but the question is: Did Alicia kill herself or was she bumped off? Leanne Best is especially terrific as another of the crash survivors, Penny, who is now married to a gentle Anglesey vicar Jimmy, the 20th-century boy once blamed for the coach crash, turns up in adulthood, sensitively played by Timothy Spall as both epileptic and bipolar The film seems reminiscent of 2019's Blinded By The Light, a frothy feelgood picture inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen Leanne Best is especially terrific as another of the crash survivors, Penny, who is now married to a gentle Anglesey vicar but whose reunion with Jimmy powers the rest of the film.