PLOT: A year after stopping a masked slasher’s killing spree, a teen girl wishes she had never been born. As a result, she gets a glimpse into a world where she never existed – and the killer is still slashing their way through her hometown.
REVIEW: Separately, Tyler MacIntyre and Michael Kennedy have delivered two of the most popular cult slasher films of recent years – Tragedy Girls and Freaky. Now they have teamed up to bring us It’s a Wonderful Knife, a film that follows the current trend of giving slasher movies a high concept twist. Happy Death Day was a time loop slasher, Totally Killer was a time travel slasher, Freaky was a body swap slasher. This time, we’re getting a movie that asks, “What if It’s a Wonderful Life had a masked killer in it?”
The first sixteen minutes of It’s a Wonderful Knife play like a regular, straightforward slasher. We’re introduced to final girl Winnie Carruthers (played by Jane Widdop), and it’s established that she lives in a small town called Angel Falls, where smarmy real estate business owner Henry Waters (Justin Long) is planning to build a massive mall called Waters Cove. There’s only one house standing in the way of Waters being able to achieve this goal… so when a masked slasher – a character that’s referred to as The Angel, due to their all-white costume – shows up to murder the owner of that home (played, in a very brief appearance by William B. Davis of The X-Files) on Christmas Eve, we can be pretty sure who’s under the mask. That’s not much of a spoiler, because by the end of the first sixteen minutes, after The Angel has claimed more victims, Winnie manages to defeat the slasher and take his mask off. This would have been the end of an average slasher, but in this film we’ve only reached the title sequence.
Then the story jumps ahead to something rarely seen in horror movies (outside of sequels): the aftermath of the horrific events. One year later, things are going well for the Carruthers family, but not for Winnie personally. She’s haunted by the events of the previous Christmas Eve, she’s mourning the loss of her best friend (who was killed by The Angel), she didn’t get into the college she wanted to attend, her boyfriend is cheating on her, her parents – Joel McHale as David and Erin Boyes as Judy – care more about her brother. It’s so bad, Winnie goes outside during an aurora light display and wishes she had never been born.
Wish granted. From that point on, Winnie finds herself in an alternative universe, getting to see what Angel Falls would be like if she didn’t exist. The Angel was never stopped and continues killing. Henry Waters built Waters Cove and became Mayor – and the town is now reminiscent of the alternative Hill Valley seen in Back to the Future Part II. Things are not good with Waters in power, but he still has his devoted followers who have fallen under his spell. With Waters’ dimwitted brother Buck (Sean Depner) now Sheriff, she can’t count on the authorities to stop The Angel… and since she never existed, she can’t convince her parents to take her in. The only support she gets comes from her aunt Gale (genre regular Katharine Isabelle) and the awkward, bullied girl everyone calls Weirdo, but whose name is actually Bernie, played by Jess McLeod. Winnie and Bernie have barely interacted at all before this, but as “the weirdo” tries to help Winnie figure out how to get back to her own reality – and avoid getting killed by The Angel along the way – the two become quite close.
Slashers are my favorite kind of horror movies to watch, so while I wasn’t a fan of Tragedy Girls (mainly because I hated the ending), I do tend to enjoy the “slasher with a high concept twist” movies we’ve been getting lately. I had a great time watching Happy Death Day, Totally Killer, and Freaky – and overall, I enjoyed watching It’s a Wonderful Knife as well. Just not quite as much as the three movies I just mentioned. Much like Bernie, there’s something that feels inherently awkward about this movie. Some of the attempts at humor don’t quite work. There are some half-baked ideas that should have been either expanded or removed (witness the drones that attend Waters’ “naughty or nice” event toward the end of the film), and there’s an odd murkiness to the cinematography that often makes the movie rather unpleasant to look at.
In a study that was recently released by UCLA, it was revealed that “American audiences between the ages of 10 and 24 (classified as Gen Z) appear to want to see less sex on screen and more platonic friendships instead.” It’s a Wonderful Knife is an instance where I can see where Gen Z is coming from. There’s not an unnecessary sex scene, but there is a kiss that occurs between two characters that didn’t seem necessary to me. George Bailey didn’t kiss Clarence the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life, and it seemed forced to have a certain pair of characters kiss in this movie. It’s something else in the movie that could have used a bit more thought. Either dig deeper or drop it.
It’s a Wonderful Knife isn’t wonderful. The script and cinematography could have been improved. But for slasher fans, it will bring some extra fun to the holidays this year. It’s an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes.
It’s a Wonderful Knife is getting a theatrical release on November 10th. It will steam on Shudder, on AMC+, and “everywhere you rent movies” at a later date.
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