Press Release BVHE Press Release: A Haunting in Venice (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

The price for a Blu-ray of a new film is £15, a fair price which I'm happy to pay. If this Blu-ray is just a penny over that, well sod 'em, I'll wait 'till it comes on TV.

Well, it's on Hulu now. I plan to watch it tonight.

 

[Alan Tully]

Well, it's on Hulu now. I plan to watch it tonight.

Ah, good, I hope you enjoy it. The trouble is, there's so many streaming services, & they all have some good stuff, & you can't subscribe to all of them (well, I suppose you can). It just doesn't seem like a workable business model to me, maybe it'll all sort itself out in time.

 

[Matt Hough]

I did watch it tonight. This is, by far, the best of Branagh's three Hercule Poirot films. Because it's more a "chamber mystery" rather than a big, expansive production like his last one, he's got a better handle on the setting and characters. It may have been adapted from Christie's Hallowe'en Party, but the plot is quite different with mostly different characters, so, unlike Death on the Nile, there is no disappointment that beloved characters have been altered from the book: the whole narrative is different and with a different tone, too. I did have a major problem with the change to Ariadne Oliver: she's made less scatty, more calculating and manipulative, and Americanized (for no good reason). Since she's in seven or so of the novels, getting her exactly right (since she was a stand-in for Christie herself) should have been important, but I found this experiment an utter failure. Even if I hadn't read the original book (and seen the David Suchet adaptation), I think figuring out the murderer is pretty easy.

Anyway, I will be happy to add this to my Christie collection. I'll be eager to see it again, the next time without commercial interruptions.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I was never a big Christie fan so I thought Fey was one of the best things about this movie.

 

[Alan Tully]

A storm in a teacup there, it's showing up in the UK at the usual price £15, a December 4th release. It'll go on my Christmas watch pile.