It's a Wonderful Knife

It was a slasher Christmas movie that was quite well shot and put together with a half decent idea,

so kudos for everyone else involved with it to make it so awful,

the script was just so terrible it was just awkward to watch, the story went nowhere, I genuinely can't believe this was made how it was,

nothing makes sense, like nothing at all, the writers didn't even attempt to make a coherent story,

it was just painful to watch the actors go through the awful script

I didn't think i could hate a movie that was essentially a christmas slasher movie so much, i don't mind cheesy, i don't mind low budget, i don't mind ridiculousness, but this is none of that, this is just bad.

We saw this as our local theaters "mystery movie" where we get to watch a movie before it comes out for a discount, without knowing what movie we're going to see. It started out as a promising comedy/slasher spin on "It's a Wonderful Life", but as the movie went on it made less and less sense and went from slapstick funny to just dumb. Instead of just an alternative spin on the main characters life, the second half tried to incorporate supernatural elements to explain the ridiculous plot twists but they just didn't work and fell flat. Even at $5 watching this movie just wasn't worth it. I can watch better movies on streaming services at home.

We have another movie that takes a classic Christmas, such as It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and give them the treatment of making them a Christmas horror/slasher movie; these kinds of movies could work, or they cannot depend on the premise. The movie It's a Wonderful Knife (2023) has a premise that could work in a horror movie with good things about it, but the way things are setup and how the movie executes the main plot with its twist, it will either not make sense, or it will not fit with what the movie is trying to do.

The main character Winnie Carruthers played by Jane Widdop, though the performance is good, the character herself can be standard or unlikable at times, though it has a couple of moments where she is at least a good character; she has some smart moments when going up against the killer, and the reasons for why she makes her wish could have been better. The mayor played by Justin Long, has a good and weird performance, but it is obvious who he really is, and his character is hated by other people because of him owning the town; his character does not do much except to look and seem suspicious because of a killer running around. Also, I will add that there are a lot of side characters that just seem like horror annoying cliches.

I like the look of the killer with it dressing in all white, and it being an angel fits what the premise is based on; the killer does brutal bloody kills either with a stylized knife or Christmas items; despite the fitting killer and the entertaining brutal kills, the way the movie executes the idea in the movie was poor. The reasons why people do not like the main character or ignore her did not make sense, and when certain things are revealed, I was a bit confused and was wondering about the direction it was going to take; also, the movie was not that despite being called a horror comedy, there were only little scenes that could be unintentionally funny.

The movie It's a Wonderful Knife (2023) is not awful, but it has a promising premise that would have worked if the main character were more likable, the execution of scenes was better, the reveal of the killer was less obvious; this is not a movie that will become a Christmas horror movie that people are going to rewatch that much, instead you might watch it and forget it a couple hours after watching. It has good things about it that are entertaining, but the movie in the end is a standard Christmas horror movie that could have been better than what we got.

It's A Wonderful Knife has such a ring to it, I just had to see it. Now was it a good or bad film, I'm still not completely sure on either end of that spectrum.

On one hand, we have a horror great, Katharine Isabelle, and a handful of cast members that try their hardest to convey their characters in a way that feels festive and lighthearted. On the other hand, we have some extremely cheesy writing and a tone flip flops around like a fish gasping for air.

Some of the films choices made zero real world sense and it felt like those choices were just there to propel the film forward, and propel forward it did. The runtime is short and brisk, at just under 90 mins, which did not give the film room to focus on any particular thing except poor Winnie and her mission. There were a few things I wish they had spent more time on and some things I wished were missing from the film entirely.

Overall, you could do better and you could do worse. Although there was some pretty shotty directing and writing, the film was still entertaining and short enough to get through without too much strain on the audience. I will say, it was not necessary to see in theaters. I may have had more fun with this film watching it on TV as opposed to the big theatrical experience.

2.5 Christmas' out of 5.

I've been really enjoying this horror trend lately of a whodunit-slasher with a creative twist. Every one of them I've seen so far has been really enjoyable. So I had high hopes for 'It's a Wonderful Knife'. Sadly this was the first one to get it wrong in my opinion.

I had hoped for a really clever story where the search for the identity of the killer would coincide with the main character doing her alternative universe thing. This was not really the case. It's a very mucky story and it's often unclear what exactly is happening and what character's motives are. It was not the story I wanted to see.

The other big problem was that the characters were not likeable enough. All the other films like this have had really likeable characters, particularly in the lead role, and it is easy to get behind them and follow their journey. That was not the case here.

The film goes for some laughs, but is rarely funny. The killer is kind of menacing, but the characters are so flat and unfleshed out that it sucks a lot of the tension out of the kills. So the film is also rarely scary. None of the characters ever seem to have a proper emotional reaction to things that happen either. All in all the film was a disappointment. 4/10.