It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – A year after saving her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve, Winnie Carruthers’ life is less than wonderful — but when she wishes she’d never been born, she finds herself in a nightmare parallel universe and discovers that without her, things could be much, much worse. Now the killer is back, and she must team up with the town misfit to identify the killer and get back to her own reality. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE by way of SCREAM.

My Take – While Hallmark and streamers begin their onslaught of new festive themed features, that will inevitably get buried in favor of the traditional classics, for the holidays, Shudder has served up a re-imagining of the iconic Frank Capra, Jimmy Stewart led holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) as a gory slasher.

Working in similar vein to concoctions like Happy Death Day (2017), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Freaky (2020), and recently released delight Totally Killer (2023), which saw classic concepts flipped into slashers, this low-key riff see a town modeled after Bedford Falls become the playground of a masked killer during holiday season, slaughtering unsuspecting victims with everything from a giant light up candy cane to a signature knife.

Mixing and matching slasher tropes along with the blueprint provided by the original, the film hits familiar story beats, offering a few narrative surprises along the way, yet it is hard not to feel how a tongue-in-cheek twist on the said iconic film in which a final girl wishes to undo her trauma should and could have been infinitely smarter and more entertaining than what writer Michael Kennedy (Freaky) and director Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls) end up serving here.

It’s a clever premise, sure, but after the opening scene, the film struggles to maintain momentum, despite a goofy, ham-fisted performance from the always reliable Justin Long. Yes, a perfectly cast Jane Widdop (Yellowjackets) gives her lead role enough depth and dimension that it makes her arc believable, but it not inspired enough to stand out, as the story hits one implausibility road bump after another.

Nevertheless, for all its limitations, it still manages to deliver the kind of holiday-themed horror mixed with just the right amount of humor, meta-parody, and social critique that should thrill and chill audiences looking for an easy watch.

The story follows Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop), who along with her parents (Joel McHale, Erin Boyes) and her brother Jimmy (Aiden Howard) lives in the a small town of Angel Falls, where a smarmy real estate business owner Henry Waters (Justin Long) is planning to build a massive mall called Waters Cove, with only one house standing in his way to achieve this goal.

On Christmas Eve, a masked killer dressed in all-white costume, referred to as The Angel, begins his killing spree by showing up first to murder the owner of that home, and then heads to a party in which the local teenagers are in attendance. Only to thwarted and killed by Winnie. Revealing the killer to be none other than Henry Waters himself.

Moving forward a year, things aren’t going well for Winnie personally. Still haunted by the events and still mourning the loss of her best friend, Cara (Hana Huggins), who was killed by The Angel, she hasn’t gotten into the college she wanted to attend, her boyfriend is cheating on her, and her parents seem to care more about her brother.

She is feeling so terrible that upon seeing the Northern Lights, Winnie ends up wishing that she was never born and is instantly transported to an alternate universe where The Angle is still on the loose, having amassed a body count upwards of 26 souls, and Henry Waters has become the Mayor. After all, she wasn’t there to stop him.

Not only is she a stranger to her friends and family, but she also needs to stop the serial killer. Again! Teaming up with the town misfit, Bernie (Jess McLeod), they reach the conclusion that she has to identify the killer again to get back to her own reality. Unfortunately, the small town is much worse off than in her own universe, so it’s easier said than done.

So begins the real story in this low-budget horror-comedy, which mostly sees Winnie running around trying to convince her family and friends that she knows them while the killer keeps striking. Tyler MacIntyre’s direction ticks all the necessary boxes. Embracing its Christmas and community setting, throwing back to a lot of other holiday themed horrors, but keeping a modern feel.

Screenwriter Michael Kennedy isn’t beholden to only holiday-season staples here as, there are traces of I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) too. But the biggest shadow looming over the film is cast by Kennedy himself. Some of the attempts at humor don’t quite work. There are some half-baked ideas that should have been either expanded or removed, and there’s an odd murkiness to the cinematography that often makes the film rather unpleasant to look at.

And as its poorly-paced plot meanders further off course, throwing random elements at the wall like the mystical aurora mystery, a mind-control twist, a late-breaking romance, it not only becomes increasingly tedious but completely forgets the reason why Winnie makes her death wish in the first place.

Thankfully, despite given its Hallmark film influence, it’s surprisingly bloody, and blood on snow is always a striking image. As director MacIntyre decks the halls with gore and splatter all over. Decking the killer out in a snow white outfit, makes for some great shots of the angel costume covered in its victim’s blood.

Performances wise, Jane Widdop puts a heroic effort into her final-girl role and carries the film through its clumsiest tonal confusions, while Jess McLeod brings a winning empathy, sensitivity and deadpan timing to the kind of standout turn that should attract more and better roles in the future. Joel McHale, Erin Boyes, Aiden Howard, Cassandra Naud and Katharine Isabelle are charmingly supportive.

But without a doubt, Justin Long is the highlight of the film. Picking up the strangest roles, Long is very enjoyable to watch to here. Creepy and constantly adding a threatening tone to everything he says. On the whole, ‘It’s A Wonderful Knife’ is a decent slasher riff on Christmas classic that doesn’t fully realize its potential.