Contents Are ghosts real? That question is at the center of one of the most anticipated movies of the season, A Haunting in Venice, Kenneth Branagh’s latest outing Hercule Poirot mystery. Loosely based on Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party, the film spends most of its time at a Venetian palazzo one rain-soaked Halloween night.
Related How A Haunting in Venice sets up its mystery plot Unfortunately, it’s only after Dr. Leslie Ferrier , a former wartime medic suffering from PTSD, is found dead with a knife in his back that Poirot finally realizes the truth about both his visions and the murders that have torn Rowena’s home apart from within.
Alicia died as a result and, in an attempt to cover up her role in her daughter’s death, Rowena scratched Alicia’s back and threw her body into the Venetian canal located beneath her bedroom’s balcony window. In doing so, she played into the locals’ fears about the ghosts rumored to haunt her home. Shortly thereafter, however, Rowena started to receive blackmail letters threatening to tell others the truth about what she’d done.
How does A Haunting in Venice end? In the wake of all of these revelations, Rowena attempts to evade capture by running to her palazzo’s roof, only for her tearful confrontation with Poirot to be interrupted by the arrival of Alicia’s ghost. Poirot, terrified, watches as her daughter’s ghost pulls Rowena over the roof’s edge and sends her plummeting to the Venetian waters below, where she hits her head on a wooden support beam.