Agatha Christie created Belgian detective Hercule Poirot more than a century ago, but he has never been portrayed onscreen the wayKenneth Branaghinhabits the character in “A Haunting in Venice.”

Not even by Branagh himself.

Branagh, of course, directed and starred as Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) and “Death on the Nile” (2022). Whereas previous Poirots — played by Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov and others — were basically eccentric oddballs, Branagh plays him as an outsider and a tightly wound perfectionist whose detective skills (and mustache) are a natural extension of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. But in “A Haunting in Venice,” based on Christie’s 1969 novel “Hallowe’en Party,” Branagh, again directing, takes the character in an exciting new direction.

This Poirot is a full-on misanthrope, a man feeling empty, cynical and quite possibly depressed. The movie is less about finding murderers and more about finding himself. It’s the best of his three Poirot films.

“A Haunting in Venice” opens in an Italy dealing with the trauma of World War II, which has just ended. Poirot lives alone in a large Venetian house. He is so withdrawn from humanity he has hired an ex-cop (Riccardo Scamarcio, “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum”) to stand guard and keep out visitors.

Poirot makes an exception when mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey, “Only Murders in the Building”) appears with an intriguing invitation. She is trying to expose a psychic (Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) as a fraud but hasn’t been able to figure out how she pulls off convincing seances.

“I’m the smartest person I’ve ever met, and I can’t figure it out, so I came to the second,” Ariadne tells Poirot.

The seance is to be held at the mansion of Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly, “Yellowstone”), who is trying to summon her daughter Alicia (played in flashbacks by Rowan Robinson), who committed suicide a year earlier. Others at the seance include Olga (Camille Cottin, “Golda”), Rowena’s housekeeper; Dr. Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan, who starred in Branagh’s “Belfast”); Alicia’s physician; and his son Leopold (Jude Hill, also of “Belfast” fame); the psychic’s assistants played by Emma Laird (“Mayor of Kingstown”) and Ali Khan (“The School for Good and Evil”); and Maxime (Livermore native凯尔·艾伦, “The Greatest Beer Run Ever”), Alicia’s grieving fiancé.

Naturally, there is a murder, and Poirot orders the house sealed until he identifies the killer.

但这不是那么简单。艾丽西亚的鬼魂也有吗suspect? There are unexplained noises throughout the house. At times “A Haunting in Venice” is, as the title implies, a horror film, with an effective score by Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Joker”).

When Poirot, an atheist, begins to experience visions, he wonders whether he’s cracking up. This is a man in great emotional pain.

However, “A Haunting in Venice” is no downer. The script by Michael Green (“Logan,” “Blade Runner 2049”), who also wrote the first two Branagh Poirots, is at times ingenious, and he wrote a great part for Fey. As the mystery novelist Ariadne, a stand-in for Christie, she brings nice comic touches to a performance that threatens to steal the movie.

No word on whether Branagh will make any more Poirot films, but with him being featured in 33 novels, 51 short stories and two plays, here’s hoping he has a film or two left in him.

Reach G. Allen Johnson: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com