Poirot - Hallowe'en Party Film Review

Letterbox only has three of the David Suchet Poirot films - not unexpectedly Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express. Probably the two most famous Christie books that were both adapted into films a few times, most recently by Kenneth Branagh. I was wondering why this one was the third. It isn't known at all as far as I know. Well, because it is the basis for his latest Poirot, A Haunting in Venice. I have yet to see that though I hope to this week - but when I saw the trailer I thought it couldn't possibly be an adaption of a Poirot film. It must be an original script. Too much razzmatazz and the supernatural. Christie could go down that road in films like The Pale Horse but not Poirot. I expect it is a very loose rendition of the book. At least I hope so because the book which I just read is rather static and dull. It consists of Poirot interviewing a dozen or so people and solving it. It was written in 1969, very late in her career and one of the last Poirot's. Very verbose with many discussions that have nothing to do with the mystery at hand.

This adaptation is much better than the book. It does not take place in Venice and there is no superstition but they do a nice job of adding a bit of eeriness to it. They also add two characters for no reason that I could see. And tie up a few loose ends - after the book you are left wondering whether a few other deaths were murders too. The book neglects to tell us, this says yes. Which makes the murderer quite a monster. Poirot is sitting comfortably but bored in his apartment only with his manservant for company when he gets a call from Ariadne Oliver, an old friend and a mystery writer. She appears in eight Christie novels. She appears in six of the Suchet episodes played by Zoe Wannamaker. A bit scatterbrained with preposterous plots that her Finnish detective has to solve. In the book she is asked why did you choose a Finish person and she replies "I've often wondered", perhaps echoing Christie's love hate relationship with her Belgian character.

Ariadne has come to Poirot to solve a murder. She was attending a children's Halloween party and one of the young girls was found drowned in a bucket where they had been playing apple bobbing. What makes it interesting to her is that earlier the girl had sworn that she had witnessed a murder a few years earlier but at the time didn't realize it. Now she is dead. Poirot suspects that it is related to another death or deaths in the past and he has to solve them all. It is quite good. Suchet is showing his age as was Poirot with his aching feet. Suchet played Poirot for 70 episodes from 1989 to 2013. This one was made in season 12 in 2010.