I'll fully admit that when I sat down to watch the new horror offering from director Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls; the screen story for Five Nights at Freddy’s), I hadn’t really considered the title of the film, beyond it being a clever take on a Christmas classic. But as I began to watch It’s a Wonderful Knife, it occurred to me that this film is a full-on horror parody of Frank Capra’s beloved story of a man who wishes he’d never been born, only to see what the world would have been like if that were a reality.
In Knife, Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop) is a high school kid whose father David (Joel McHale) works for the corrupt businessman who essentially owns the town, Henry Waters (Justin Long with really bad fake teeth). Waters is trying to convince the one last residential holdout to sell him his property so he can build an endless slew of commercial properties, turning this small town into a consumer paradise. But the old man who owns the property won’t sell. His granddaughter also happens to be Winnie’s best friend, and while the two go out to a high school Christmas party, a mysterious white-shrouded, masked figure kills the grandfather and soon finds the granddaughter at the party, killing her as well and making sure that no one in that family can inherit the property. But before the night is done, Winnie kills the masked killer (dubbed The Angel) and reveals him to be Waters himself. This isn’t a spoiler; this all happens in the first 20 minutes or so.
Jumping ahead one year, Winnie is still mortified that her best friend was killed, but the good news is that the town is now run by her father, who has the town’s actual best interests at heart and seems to be running things better than Waters ever would have. Everyone seems perfectly fine with the fact that only a year ago, people were slaughtered, and late that night Winnie spots an aurora in the sky and wishes she’d never been born, opening up a nightmare parallel universe in which The Angel/Waters got away with his crimes and many more during the year that followed; her father is still under the control of Waters; Waters’ scumbag brother is now the town sheriff; and many more of her family and friends were dead.
Written by Michael Kennedy, It’s A Wonderful Knife very much focuses on what sounds like a couple dozen murders that no one is really investigating, leading Winnie to understand that Waters not only controls the town financially but seems to have everyone under some sort of mass hypnosis. She teams up with the town misfit, Bernie (whom everyone calls Weirdo, played by Jess McLeod) and her Aunt Gale (Katharine Isabelle), to find out who the killer actually is (there’s some evidence that it’s no longer Waters) and expose everyone for the scam artists they are. But more importantly, Winnie is desperate to get back to her own time, where her family and classmates recognize her, and all the killing was put to an end a year ago.
The film isn’t particularly clever or funny or scary, and I feel like you need at least one of those things for me to even consider recommending it. Widdop is plucky, but her perpetual lingering in the past gets old quickly, and even I began wishing she’d snap out of her sadness and move forward with her life. Most of the characters are underwritten stereotypes of high school students, business types, or small town familiars, and no one really breaks out of that shell and shows any iota of character development. Despite its 90-minute running time, I got very bored with Knife very quickly. And despite its Christmastime setting, I can’t imagine this becoming a holiday staple in anyone’s household.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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