"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

#Spooktober 3 – A Haunting in Venice

I recently went to see this movie with some friends, and it’s perfectly fitting for the haunting season whether you like Banagh’s Poirot or not (I personally have mixed feelings).

It has a couple of things in common with the book of Spooktober Day 1, particularly a detective trying to shed rational light on apparently supernatural events and a general strength in the haunting atmosphere. The story draws from some of Agatha Christie’s short stories and the movie adaptation has a lot of things one might need on a Halloween night: a haunted palace in Venice, creepy masked people, the ghost of a girl who went mad and drowned herself (or did she?), ghosts of orphans out for revenge and an ancient curse, dead flowers and dead bees, a fake medium, a haunted doctor.

The mystery was very Agatha Christie: solidly built, a little obvious once you put the pieces together, with some nice twists you might not expect.
The main weakness, as far as I’m concerned, was the pursue of horror movie tropes, but – CONFESSION TIME! – I really don’t like horror movies. I find them silly. And this movie was a little silly, at times, with its attempt at jump scares.
Spooktober

Spooktober 25 – The Phantom Farm House (2)

Continues from yesterday… ATORRENT of rain held us marooned the next day. Miss Leahy was confined to her room, with a nurse in constant attendance and the house doctor making hourly calls. She was on the verge of a nervous collapse, he told me, crying

Read More »
October 25, 2026 6:00 am
books and literature

Alix Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches

I wouldn’t have started this book on my own, and for many reasons. One of them is that in Italy it’s marketed as Young Adult Fiction, and I hate most of that stuff, and the other is its imposing length: 600 pages. I was distracted,

Read More »
October 24, 2026 9:00 am
Spooktober

Spooktober 24 – The Phantom Farm House (1)

“The Phantom Farmhouse” is a short story written by Seabury Quinn, first published in the October 1923 issue of Weird Tales. It is one of Quinn’s most famous standalone works outside of his popular Jules de Grandin detective series. I had been at the new

Read More »
October 24, 2026 6:00 am
Load More
Share on LinkedIn
Throw on Reddit
Roll on Tumblr
Mail it
No Comments

Post A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RELATED POSTS

Spooktober 25 – The Phantom Farm House (2)

October 25, 2026

Continues from yesterday… ATORRENT of rain held us marooned the next day. Miss Leahy was confined to her room, with a nurse in constant attendance and the house doctor making hourly calls. She was on the verge of a nervous collapse, he told me, crying

Read More

Alix Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches

October 24, 2026

I wouldn’t have started this book on my own, and for many reasons. One of them is that in Italy it’s marketed as Young Adult Fiction, and I hate most of that stuff, and the other is its imposing length: 600 pages. I was distracted,

Read More

Spooktober 24 – The Phantom Farm House (1)

October 24, 2026

“The Phantom Farmhouse” is a short story written by Seabury Quinn, first published in the October 1923 issue of Weird Tales. It is one of Quinn’s most famous standalone works outside of his popular Jules de Grandin detective series. I had been at the new

Read More