Hôtel fantôme

Not a film to take too seriously, since the murders in the snowbound hotel and the ensuing investigation are more on the comic than the tragic side.

Unfortunately, as in «The Mousetrap» which is one of the progenitors of this tale, one cannot discuss the identity of the murderer or their motive without a massive spoiler that would spoil future viewers' fun. Suffice to say that what has seemed trite becomes psychological, so the deliberate early banality ends with a nice twist of complexity.

And the German title gives us a tiny clue, as it is pretty sure to be the detective's last case (though, as with the Reichenbach Falls, one must never rule out resurrection!)

I found this movie entertaining enough, even thou it is kinda mediocre. The thing I found interesting is that it plays many of the points of classics like Poirot or Holmes. There is the secluded location, many people with seemingly no connection, a murder in a locked room and a detective who is there completely by chance. The detective has the slightly unusual and abrasive personality that is also not uncommon in detective stories. The actors are mostly somewhere between ok and mediocre, some scenes work well, others fall kinda flat. My main point of criticism would be, that the suspects are too few and not interesting enough which is a major let-down if you compare it to the stories it seems to be inspired by. Also the art- and camera direction are not especially inspired, just the usual "made for TV"-look and the ending dragged a bit.

Overall I give the movie a 6,5 mainly for playing like a slight parody of a classic detective-story.

I was surprised that this film that certainly hasn't been seen much outside of the German speaking countries has been rated so many times but hadn't been reviewed. The reason for that is that there's not much to say about it: the story is uninteresting and falls flat, the characters are without any depth and the solution of the murder case that is central to the story is implausible and disappointing like the entire film. The only positive about the film is that some of the dialogue is witty but that's not enough to save the film and not feel like you've just wasted 1 1/2 hours of your life.