TODAY'S NUGGET: A Haunting in Venice (2023) - Unspoken Horror/Angst + Using a Swinging Door

[Quick Summary: A medium is murdered the night of an orphans' Halloween party. What did she know?]

I am going to tread lightly here, as I:
1) am an avid Agatha Christie fan (and admittedly a bit of snob),* and
2) have not been the biggest fan of the latest Kenneth Branagh remakes.**

This third film uses the book's setting of a Halloween party, but not the plot (the latter of which, in my opinion, is loosely adapted from another Christie novel). 

However, the script is well written and spooky. 

I particularly appreciated writer Michael Green's use of a swinging door that bodes ominous things (below). 

In this scene:
- Alicia and Maxine were engaged. He broke it off when her mother, Rowena, wouldn't approve.
- Maxine left. Alicia got sick and died.
- Years later, a medium now claims that she knows Alicia was murdered.
- After her Halloween party for orphans tonight, Rowena has agreed to hold a seance to contact Alicia.
- Maxine has returned to be a part of the seance.
- I felt the visual below captures the unspoken horror/angst between Rowena and Maxine, especially how she blames Maxine for Alicia's death, though he is innocent.
- The movement and rhythm of the door also increases the psychological horror, tension, and suspense between these two.  What's going to happen next?
- We are standing in Maxine's POV in the kitchen.

INT. KITCHEN/ PANTRY / DINING ROOM. PALAZZO. NIGHT.

A PANTRY DOOR SWINGS, OPEN / SHUT / OPEN, giving SWIPED views of ROWENA AND LEOPOLD. Inside eating cake at A SERVANTS' TABLE (by a PHONE). Rowena's gaze lasers up on the last swing, hate in her eyes. The door closes.

ON MAXINE. Feeling it. She was looking at him.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I thought the swinging door was an apt metaphor for this strained relationship, and wonderful way to amplify that strain.

A Haunting in Venice (2023)(undated)
by Michael Green
Adapted from the novel, Hallowe'en Party, by Agatha Christie

*For those who are curious: my favorite Poirot actor is David Suchet, and my favorite Miss Marple actor is Joan Hickson.

**This is the best of the three remakes.  My main issue with two prior remakes is that they spend a lot of Act 1 dwelling on Poirot as a person, establishing him with an ego, as the "most celebrated detective." I feel this: a) completely undercuts the joke, i.e., he's not as famous as he thinks he is; b) is distracting and unnecessary.  Mysteries are not really about the detective, per se.