A Haunting in Venice Ending Explained | Book Changes | Spoilers

hello Agatha Christie fans and welcome back to nerd doc the next Agatha Christie film adaptation is finally here and that means it's time to examine the ending and main plot points of a haunting in Venice we'll also take a look at some of the changes from the book to the movie that means there will be spoilers for a haunting in Venice in this video this is your spoiler warning if you do not wish to be spoiled you can check out our spoiler-free YouTube short review Linked In the description below there are chapter timestamps so you can jump around the video As You Wish and as always the movie is still in theater so we can only use footage from the trailers please bear with us there if you have any questions or want to give your own take on the movie leave a comment below a haunting in Venice takes place in Venice Italy shocking deduction in 1947. as a very loose sequel to death on the Nile Fame detective haircut is now retired and has no interest in taking on any new cases he's hired a bodyguard Mr portfoglio to stop people from approaching him with new cases Mr portfoglio was also a former police officer in Venice an old friend of Hercule ariadne Oliver a mystery novelist who based most of her novels on Hercules exploits pays him a visit it's Halloween and there's a seance being performed by Joyce Reynolds happening that night to talk to spirits of the Dead Miss Oliver claims she can't figure out what Miss Reynolds trick is and wants Hercule to come with her to see if he can figure it out it turns out that the Seance will follow a Halloween party at the home of Rowena Drake whose daughter Alicia Drake allegedly committed suicide one year ago by jumping off the top balcony the house used to be an orphanage and is allegedly haunted due to a bunch of children dying there many years ago when they were locked inside by a group of doctors and nurses Elisa Drake said that she heard voices and it some would assumed that she possibly could have been pushed off the balcony by the evil spirits in attendance at the Seance or Hercule and his guard along with Miss Oliver Miss Reynolds Miss Drake the Drake Family Doctor Leslie farrier and his son Leopold as well as a Drake's former housekeeper Olga simenov Alicia's ex-fiancee Maxim Gerard and Miss Reynolds assistant Desdemona Holland as the Seance begins Hercule immediately spots evidence of Miss Reynold's second assistant Nicholas Holland desdemona's brother Nicholas was hidden in the chimney and using a magnetic switch to make it seem as though ghosts were controlling Miss Reynolds typewriter and communicating with people in the room this is followed by a lot of chair spinning and Miss Reynolds claiming that she's speaking for the decisions Drake saying that she was murdered by someone in the room the Seance comes to an end with plants or Miss Reynolds to return the next night then just before midnight Joyce Reynolds bids Hercule farewell telling him to loosen up a bit then starts to leave Hercule takes his advice to Heart placing his cloak over his head and attempting to Bob for apples in another room someone comes up from behind clubs him in the head and tries to drown him in the apple bobbing tub they fail but shortly after this Miss Reynolds is impaled on a statue breaking her watch in the process Hercule locks the place down as his guard calls the police unfortunately there's a bad storm outside and the police can't come until the storm subsides Hercule drinks tea with honey that Miss Oliver was able to find in the cupboard then they work together to interview each of the participants attempting to solve the case however during each interview Hercule hears voices and at one point even sees a little girl who turns out to be a young Alicia Drake making him question if the curse on the house is actually real eventually the doctor and the ex-fiance get into a fist fight the doctor ends up getting injured and lays down in the music room which is virtually soundproof as we mentioned before they lock him inside the music room two quote-unquote keep him safe with Hercule being the only one with the key but they eventually find him dead as well run through by a sword from a nearby armor set the movie ends just as you may have guessed with Hercule figuring everything out as it turns out the mother Rowena Drake killed her daughter Alicia Alicia was engaged to Maxim Gerard and they were quite happy together however Rowena was extremely overprotective of her daughter to the point of near Insanity from her mother's perspective no one was good enough for Alicia so Marina began to slowly poison her daughter's tea using honey that is toxic to humans causing them to hallucinate and start to go crazy this helped cause an end to the engagement with Alicia refusing to take Maxine back despite his best efforts her mother only gave Alicia a very small amount of poison not enough to kill her but just enough to drive her a little crazy force her to stay in bed and keep the gentleman collars away however one night Rowena was exhausted so the housekeeper took over caring for Alicia not realizing that the honey was toxic she gave Alicia a fatal dose causing her to die in her sleep when the mother found her dead she tried to cover her tracks by throwing Alicia off the balcony since the family doctor was also in love with Rowena and suffered from PTSD from the war he wasn't good at his job and unable to find a reason to believe death was anything other than suicide however the doctor son Leopold was extremely smart for his young age he had a hunch that perhaps Foul Play was involved and his dad wasn't doing well meaning they needed money so he sent Anonymous blackmail letters to Rowena she ended up paying him but it also made her suspicious since only a few people would have the potential knowledge to know what really happened the doctor being one of them that's the reason why she killed him when he was locked in the music room now to explain how that happened the phone lines were dead due to the storm but you could still call from room to room within the house this is similar to Modern intercom systems and was used frequently in old hospitals of this nature while the doctor was locked in the music room Rowena called him confessed to killing Alicia and essentially told him she would kill his son too if he did not use his sword to kill himself it's a bit far-fetched that he would go along with this but when you factor in his severe PTSD it doesn't take much to think he could be convinced that rarena would actually kill his son now ask or Miss Oliver her book sales were down and she needed a hit her original plan was to work with Hercules bodyguard and Joyce Reynolds to get Hercule to take the case and eventually stump him that would allow her to write a book about the history of the house and the Mystery of the great hokko Perot couldn't solve a guaranteed hit in her eyes unfortunately when Joyce riddles claimed to know who the murderer was she became a target for Rowena then everything went downhill from there due to Hercules cloak being identical to Joyce Reynolds Rowena mistook him for Joyce when she tried to drown him in the apple bobbing tub despite this mistake Rowena was actually much smarter than she let on she knew she would kill Joyce at midnight so she went into the music room and adjusted the clock pushing it back by a few minutes she then told the former housekeeper to meet her in the music room Rowena killed Joyce just after midnight then met the housekeeper in the music room just as the adjusted Clock Struck midnight since the room was virtually soundproof the housekeeper couldn't hear Joyce's murder happening and no one outside the room could hear the clock as it struck twelve giving Rowena a solid Alibi saying that she was with the housekeeper at midnight when Joyce was killed there are a couple of holes in this Rowena tried to kill Hercule first thinking he was Joyce this likely would have pushed her timetable back just a bit so that she ended up killing Joyce right after midnight and should have ruined her Alibi although the time still worked out anyway for coincidental reasons she also took a gamble assuming people would note the exact time of the murder either she was super smart planning all this in advance or coincidentally very lucky that the timing all ended up working out anyway Hercule was seeing and hearing things because the tea he was given earlier in the night used the same honey Rowena used to slowly poison her daughter so it gave him the same hallucinations that Alicia was seeing before her death the only questionable instance is at the very end when Rowena was on the balcony having run up there after Hercule revealed her as a murderer it was just her and Hercule and Hercules saw what appeared to be Alicia's ghost trip Arena causing her to slip and fall off the balcony to her death now Rowena was in a panic State and it was still storming outside so she could have easily slipped on the wet floor without any Supernatural assistance however that would make for some very specific timing of Hercules hallucination seeing Alicia trip her mother just as Rowena actually tripped was also seemingly helped by Alicia earlier in the movie when he found a photo under a table that helped clear any motive of her ex-fiance might have had it can still be explained Away by coincidence but it's just odd enough to keep an audience guessing if the spirits were real or not moving on to the differences between the book and the movie while murder on the Orient and Death on the Nile were direct adaptations of their respective novels a haunting in Venice is not the movie is very Loosely based on Agatha Christie's book Halloween party which takes place in England not Venice Italy Joyce Reynolds is not a supernatural medium but is instead a 13 year old girl at the party who claims to have witnessed a murder before she herself is found dead drowned in an apple bobbing tub Miss Oliver is still a famed novelist and was attending the party and calls on her good friend Hercule to solve the murder and Joyce's claims however she doesn't double cross Hercule as she does in the movie there are some other characters that are both in the book and the film but many are chained similar to how Joyce Reynolds was changed Leopold is Joyce's younger brother in the book instead of the doctor's son like he is in the movie Rowena Drake Still organizes the party and is found to be the person who killed Joyce Reynolds but this obviously wasn't her daughter she actually doesn't even have a daughter in the book the police are also much more involved in the book there are more deaths Hercule isn't retired and there's no Supernatural element to the mystery at all other than a handful of characters with the same names these two stories are different in almost every single way there are some little nods to the source material such as Hercule almost drowning in an apple botting tub but with double the cast of characters a completely different location different motives for the killers and a number of other differences it's difficult to even say a haunting in Venice was inspired by Halloween party so if for any reason you didn't enjoy the movie you may still enjoy the book and vice versa are you satisfied with all the differences between the book and the film or would you rather preferred a closer adaptation what do you think the next movie in the Agatha Christie film series should be assuming we get another one let us know your thoughts in the comments below for now that wraps up this video thank you for watching if you enjoyed the video please don't forget to like subscribe and share with someone who loves Agatha Christie and murder mystery films

Channel: The Nerd Doc

Views: 13,260

Keywords: A Haunting in Venice, Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot, Ending Explained, Spoilers, Book Changes, A Halloween Party, Book Differences

Id: EaR6PjTsFWo

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 14 2023