It's A Wonderful Knife

Fallen Angel

It's A Wonderful Knife
Directed by Tyler MacIntyre
2023 United Kingdom/United States/Canada
Shudder

Warning: Kinda spoilers.

Hmm... this was not the film I was hoping it would be.

When I first heard they’d made a horror version of what is, after all, the greatest Christmas movie ever made... It’s A Wonderful Life (reviewed by me here), I was thrilled. I love this new trend of taking something which already exists in its own right and putting a horror or sci-fi or slasher spin on it (even though I hate slashers... I personally prefer gialli). And in the marketing, the spirit of some of those kinds of films which I loved such as Happy Death Day (review here), Happy Death Day 2U (review here) and, quite specifically named in the trailer... Freaky (review here)... is certainly invoked. However, after a not terrible opening, It's A Wonderful Knife very quickly turns into a bit of a mediocre mess of a production, it has to be said.

The film stars Jane Widdop as Winnie Carruthers, who lives in Angel Falls and who is having a tough time at Christmas as she has been rejected from a place at the university she wants to go to and whose boyfriend is, unknown to her at the time, straying in his amorous intentions. And then her best friend is killed by a psycho stalker the night he goes on a rampage. She manages to kill and unmask the killer but, a year later, while things have improved for everyone else in the sleepy, suburban town as a result of her actions... things are still bad for her. And so, with the aid of some supernatural shenanigans I really didn’t understand, she wishes she was never born and then she gets her wish, navigating an evil tinted version of Angel Falls where she wasn’t there to stop the psycho, as the killer has been murdering more and more people every week. It’s up to her to kill the killer(s) and somehow manage to get herself back to her own version of reality.

So, yeah, the film tries its best to be a parody of the Frank Capra classic, with dialogue exchanges such as “You’re George Bailey!” “Will you be my Clarence?” and I even noticed the marquee of the local cinema, when Winnie runs past it, shows that they are playing The Bells Of St. Mary’s... just like the cinema was when James Stewart’s George Bailey runs past it in Bedford Falls in It’s A Wonderful Life. But, yeah, some nice sly references do not a classic make, for sure.

Now I’ve been trying to figure out why the film doesn’t gel for me. I mean, it jams inclusivity/wokeness down your throat somewhat but that’s really not enough to make me give up on a movie and, while it is a bit overpowering, it didn’t really bother me too much. And it did have the odd moment that was really good, especially from the opening sequences before the title comes up. For example, when one of the girls is kissing her boyfriend, she comes up for air and says he tastes funny... the reason being that, when they were lip locked, the killer comes up behind him and pushes a shaprened candy cane through the back of his head and out through his mouth... which was a nice, surprising moment (kind of a shame they give that one away on the trailer, to be honest) but, these stabs of poetic violence are in short supply throughout the film and it really could have used more of that kind of thing.

Also, I really didn’t care about any of the characters. Possibly because I couldn’t identify with any of them but, honestly, that’s never stopped me investing emotionally in characters before. I really didn’t care who lived or died in this movie. I would have been quite happy with nobody making their way out of this one alive, truth be told. And the story is a bit of an illogical mess with seeming contradictions at every turn... at least, that’s what it felt like to me.

The one thing I did like about the production was the musical score by Russ Howard III, which reminded me just a little of something Bear McCreary might have written for this kind of film... with the odd Christmas tunes plundered and turned into more sinister versions of themselves throughout. I’d buy a CD release of this one in a second, if it got one.

And that’s me done with It’s A Wonderful Knife, I think... this is not a great movie. Granted it’s really not too badly made (although, as I said, some of the story seems a bit woolly at best) but it’s certainly not a good film either and I really don’t need to ever see this one again during my lifetime, I think. Not a glowing recommendation from me, I’m afraid.