Of Christmas Slays From Days That Could've Been: It's a Wonderful Knife (2023)

It's A Wonderful Knife (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Jane Widdop, Joel McHale, Justin Long

Every time an angel do their slayings, a victim gets their wings.

Alright, let me just get this out there first and tell you guys that I never saw the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946), but I am familiar with its plot thanks to a lot of cartoons from my childhood parodying it with varying degrees of effectiveness, showing me what would happen when a meddling angel takes the time to talk a troubled soul out of removing themselves from the plane of existence by showing how sucky everything would be without them. It's a cute concept, warm even, so why not put a little slasher spin to the tale for our bloodcurdling enjoyment? 

The small and idyllic town of Angel Falls is currently going through a bit of a commercial takeover courtesy of its excessively wheedling mayor, Henry Waters (Justin Long), and the only obstacle left before the unctuous town leader can start building his dream mall is an old man who refuses to sell his real estate. It's Christmas Eve and after rejecting Waters his title of the land once more, the old timer bites the big one when someone dressed in an ironically angelic white cloak and creepy blank-faced mask murders him, before going after his teen granddaughter, Cara Evans (Hana Huggins), who's currently attending a Christmas party with her bestfriend, our lead girl Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop). Just when the festivities are in full swing, Winnie unfortunately gets the dishonor of watching her bestie die at the hands of the Angel of Death before the cloaked killer goes after her and her gay brother, Jimmy (Aiden Howard). One cat-and-mouse stalk through the woods later, Winnie eventually ends the carnage by electrocuting the Angel to death with a car battery just as the bastard was about to dig its dagger into her brother's chest, revealing the killer to be none other than *gasp!* Mayor Waters!

Jump ahead one year and it's Christmas once again. Angel Falls is moving past the horrific killing spree that shook the little town and everyone is doing their best to be honky-dory for the holidays. Everyone, except Winnie; still reeling from the trauma of losing Cara, she's disheartened by the fact that most of her family is basically blind to her grief and her Joyeux Noel is further tainted when the college she's aiming to get in rejects her application, some members of the Waters clan are openly hostile at her for killing Henry (yeah, well, maybe he shouldn't be killing in the first place?) and she catches her boyfriend getting the mistletoe service from the school floozy. Holly jolly mood broken from one bad news to the next, beaten down to her lowest, Winnie wishes under the glow of the night's glowing green aurora that she's never been born. 

Well? Wish granted.

Now Winnie finds herself in an alternate reality where she never existed and, in turn, no one was there to stop Henry Waters from his killing spree. The town is now in shambles, with the Waters family taking over most of the businesses and positions of authority, and, oh, the friggin' Angel of Death is still out and about depopulating the town of its people every other week or so. As Winnie is now a blank slate to everyone in town, she also has little to no way on convincing the townsfolk that their beloved mayor is behind the growing death toll so she has no choice but to find a way to stop the Angel from taking more lives herself and hopefully find a way back to the life she once thought is crummy. Thankfully, she has the town weirdo Bernie Simon (Jess McLeod) on her side, convinced of her wild tales of wishing to never existing and Maniac Mayor Waters after she herself gets a close call of getting acquainted with the Angel's dagger, but will their combined wit and bravery be enough to undo the reign of terror that have befallen Angel Falls?

As a horror stab on It's A Wonderful Life, It's A Wonderful Knife (2023) transitioned a lot of the Christmas classic's plot elements into the slasher playing field well enough to give us a rather unique festive bodycounter that delivers chuckles and chucked body parts, but not without tumbling down a step or two; It starts off strong with an oldie but goodie slasher act of a mad masked maniac going after their victims in a motivated killing spree, dishing out striking visuals, intense murders and effective prowling scenes punctuated with an unmasking and an obvious reveal. From there, the movie spends a fair roll showcasing our lead girl's understandable seasonal depression and the universe's unwavering cruelty of playing its dices against her, an overwhelming bout of cynicism that taps well into the movie's ability to evoke pity whenever it is needed, which would have been a memorably strong direction given that Knife stuck with it.  

Instead, once after an otherworldly force answers Winnie's wish of non-existence, the film leans to a more quickly paced, humor-adjacent approach and though this is no means a bad thing, it does take away opportunities for the film to go deeper into the horror and misery of the odd misadventure our heroine finds herself in, something that could have build the stakes higher and grace us with a better range of character development that didn't feel sort of lacking, if not rushed. For its worth, the writing at least maintains an animated energy and even a sense of warmth, particularly whenever it focuses on Winnie learning her lesson after seeing how terrible things would have become if she didn't came to be, thus motivating her to find a solution to undo it to better everyone's lives, as well as her growing relationship towards the town's young pariah cruelly nicknamed 'Weirdo', who'd become Winnie's strongest ally and a workable second main character to root for. 

When it comes to the slasher goods, It's A Wonderful Knife (2023) fortunately swings it with a fair line of bloody kills that goes double digits by the count and fun set-pieces packed with viable thrills and suspense, plus the design of the Angel of Death really stands out for how simple yet menacing they look in an all-white mask and cloak, even more so blood-drenched. The only Crux of the matter is that, seeing we pretty much know Mayor Waters is the culprit behind the first set of murders, the movie tries to bend things a bit to keep the massacres a little less easy to resolve, though the path taken unnecessarily complicates things to the point it's nonsensical: without revealing too much, the whole thing devolves into a weird, cultish, mind-control situation that may or may not be supernatural. It all came out of nowhere and the resulting showdown at Angel Fall's town center is just mind-boggling for how needlessly extra it is when the eventual resolution is underwhelmingly simple. 

Little flecks of coal aside, It's A Wonderful Knife (2023) grants our wishes of a fairly fun slasher for the holidays! It may not be at the same ball park as Happy Death Day (2017) or Freaky (2020) in terms of writing or gruesome brutality, but there's enough chasing and slashing here to earn a watch, especially around the most wonderful time of the year! Warm from both bloodshed and tender moments, you can't go wrong with this one!

Bodycount:

1 elderly male had his throat cut with a dagger

1 male impaled through the mouth with a cane

1 female stabbed and slashed to death with a dagger

1 male electrocuted to death with a live car battery

1 male found stabbed in the eye with a dagger

1 male hacked to death with an axe

1 female gutted with a dagger

1 male found pinned to a table with a knife through the neck

1 female stabbed in the back with a dagger

1 female stabbed to death with a dagger

1 male stabbed to death with a dagger

1 male stabbed in the chest with a broken broom handle

1 male stabbed in the gut with a dagger

1 male stabbed in the gut with a dagger

Total: 14