A Haunting in Venice

On November 6th 2023, I watched the movie entitled the same, and it was the perfect allegory for what the enemy has done with many of us today. Below is the plot of the movie;

In 1947, Hercule Poirot has retired to Venice, having lost his faith in God and humanity, with ex-police officer Vitale Portfoglio as his bodyguard. Mystery writer Ariadne Oliver persuades Poirot to attend a Halloween party and séance at the palazzo of famed opera singer Rowena Drake, wishing to expose Joyce Reynolds—a World War I army nurse turned medium—as a fraud. The palazzo, a former orphanage, is believed to be haunted by the spirits of orphaned children who were locked up and abandoned to die there during a city-wide plague; rumors claim that the spirits torment any nurses and doctors who dare enter.

Rowena has hired Joyce to commune with her daughter Alicia, who committed suicide after Alicia’s fiancé, chef Maxime Gerard, ended their engagement. Among the guests are Rowena’s housekeeper Olga Seminoff, Drake family doctor Leslie Ferrier and his son Leopold, and Joyce’s Romani assistant Desdemona Holland; they are joined by Maxime right before the séance, and during it Poirot reveals Desdemona’s half-brother Nicholas—and Joyce’s second assistant—hiding in the chimney.

Joyce suddenly speaks in Alicia’s voice, saying that one of the guests murdered her. Poirot confronts Joyce, who insists he lighten up, gives him her mask and robe, and cryptically says they will not meet again. Seconds later, an unknown assailant nearly drowns Poirot when he is apple bobbing, while Joyce falls from an upper story and is impaled on a courtyard statue.

With a storm cutting off the palazzo, Poirot interviews the guests, during which he witnesses manifestations of Alicia’s ghost and hears a young girl humming a tune. The investigation yields perplexing results:

Leslie, severely traumatized by his experiences at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, is in love with Rowena.
Maxime, who was not initially invited, ended his and Alicia’s engagement because Rowena disapproved of him, and Alicia was obsessed with keeping her mother happy.
Nicholas and Desdemona have been stealing from Joyce, intending to travel to St. Louis, Missouri, which they became enamoured with after partly seeing Meet Me in St. Louis at a displaced persons camp.
Leopold claims to hear the same voice(s) Poirot has been hearing, a claim later also made by Leslie.

When the guests discover an underground chamber containing children’s skeletal remains and bees, Leslie suffers a panic attack and nearly kills Maxime. He is locked inside the music room to recover, Rowena giving Poirot the only key. After examining Maxime’s invitation, Poirot deduces Ariadne sent it and is conspiring with Vitale: Vitale, who investigated Alicia’s death and resigned from the police as a result of the case, gave Joyce private details, while Ariadne had hoped to use Poirot’s inability to explain the supernatural as a plot for her next book. Leslie is then found dead with a knife in his back.

Gathering the remaining guests, Poirot reveals Rowena caused the deaths of Alicia, Joyce, and Leslie, hoping to pass them off as part of the children’s curse. Obsessed with keeping Alicia for herself, Rowena poisoned her with small doses of the honey of Rhododendron ponticum flower, weakening and then caring for a hallucinating Alicia (the same honey seemingly caused Poirot’s visions) to isolate her from Maxime when they planned to reconcile; the night of Alicia’s suicide, Olga unknowingly gave Alicia tea containing a fatal dose and Rowena, fearful of exposure, staged everything.

When blackmail threats arrived, Rowena suspected either Joyce or Leslie. She attempted to drown Poirot, realized that she had mistaken him for Joyce, and then pushed Joyce to her death. Later, over the palazzo’s internal phone line, she forced Leslie to stab himself by threatening to kill Leopold. When Poirot confronts Rowena on the roof, Alicia’s ghost seems to appear to them both, pulling Rowena down off the building and into the canal where she drowns…

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The devil is like Rowena. He poisons us with the ponticum honey and makes our fears seem visible and real. Poirot would have believed the spirits existed yet in essence none did. However, once he discovered that the flower’s honey avails illusions, he cornered the antagonist!

The Bible says my people perish because of a lack of knowledge. If you as well discover that particular weapon of the devil’s through the flower, you’ll not succumb. There’ll be no haunting! There never was!

You’re not ugly! It’s the poison. You’re not poor! It’s the poison. No one is bewitching your business! It’s the illusions! You’re fearfully and wonderfully made! Christ became your poverty so that you might have His riches! No weapon formed against you can ever prosper and there’s no divination against Jacob or you who’s in Christ!

May your veil fall off. May your scales fall off! May that glorious light of His word comprehend all darkness around you!

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2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

2 Corinthians 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.