It's a Wonderful Knife (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Despite its title, It's a Wonderful Knife successfully won its way onto my yearly holiday watchlist. Part of the new vogue that is teen slasher and poppy comedy in one, this hybrid will lure audiences who want a mindless stabfest relating in some way to the Frank Capra 1946 winter classic It's a Wonderful Life. I confess to enjoy that film less than its made-for-television remake that gender swaps its protagonist and is led by a magnificent Marlo Thomas (1977's It Happened One Christmas). I also confess that I have always considered it more of a New Year's movie than a Christmas one, for whatever that's worth. Regardless, this new twist on the formula lowers the age of every character, does away with familiar names and titles, and modernizes it to the present day. It also adds a serial killer.

Henry Waters is the premier realtor in Angel Falls, aggressively angling to acquire enough land to establish a monopoly on commercial retail. His sole obstacle, revered patriarch Roger Evans, rejects Waters shortly before a masked man in stark white materializes and slits his throat and murders his granddaughter. Winnie Carruthers, resourceful and quick-thinking teenager that she is, both flees and fights the killer before electrocuting him and unmasking Waters himself, now deceased. Note: there's a chilling moment of recognition with Waters, who indicates (as a certain recent American president has) that he could kill someone without scrutiny or penalty.

But this is where things get interesting. Because all this happens before the title card appears. 

The breathless opening sequence effectively sets up the rest of the story, which fans of the source material know all too well. Central to understanding that story is a patient approach to exposition and theme -- namely, the humdrum life of a small town and its busybody citizens -- which isn't necessary nor welcome in the updated spin. Rather, after the title card, our story leaps ahead in time one year, during which time Winnie (Jane Widdop of Yellowjackets) is spiraling in grief and guilt. Her loving family -- led by father David (Joel McHale, handsome as ever) -- is the apple in Angel Falls's eye, but they refuse to talk about the horrors of the previous year or to get Winnie the psychological and emotional help she clearly needs. Winnie gets rejected from college, cheated on by her boyfriend, and still mourns the death of her friend, and so when it all becomes too much one night, she wishes on the Northern Lights that she was never born.

Immediately, the killer reappears and starts cutting people up. Winnie slowly comes to the realization that her wish came true and has to attempt to identify and stop the killer, who we quickly learn is no longer the same man. And this is where I actually fell in love with the film. Director Tyler MacIntyre and writer Michael Kennedy (who also wrote Freaky) pay homage to Capra's classic in countless references and arcs, but they constantly subvert and reverse the things most familiar to us. And while it would have been easiest to simply make the material a bloody fun time, they bake some timely and complex themes and character development into the otherwise delightful pie. If you had told me I'd cry not once but twice in a brief movie of this tenor, I'd have choked on my eggnog.

But I did, and it's that profound sense of heart that makes the film a surprising win. It helps, too, that the gays are numerous in this movie. But the real point of this story is how to deal with grief, especially internalized grief; it's less about the ripple effect we have on others and more about how we find purpose, lose it in doubt and despair, and then reclaim it from the grasp of self-harm and suicide. It's about that internal work, something I'm not sure I've ever really seen a slasher flick explore before. And the screenplay smartly shies away from melodrama, keeping things about as un-Capra-esque as possible. Even when the filmmakers rip him off, as in the finale sequence when Winnie runs down the downtown sidewalk hollering greetings and affection at everyone nearby with her joyful George Bailey born-again-ism. 

The horror elements don't take much of a backseat to all this heavy emotional work, though, which should please genre fans. I found it less bloody than its title suggests, which is fine, though I'd have preferred a bit more on that front, if only for the aesthetic of blood on white snow (and robes). The killer's design is deeply creepy, sleek in all the wrong ways and hinting at a sort of religious piety or avenging angel (again, note the town's pointed name). Unlike many slashers, the characters do fit some expected archetypes, but most are deceptively well-rounded, making them hard to identify as "jock," "geek," etc. Even the few characters the film does label are then relabeled by the film itself, as if it anticipated our criticisms of that. The cast is uniformly delightful, even Justin Long's off-putting antics as the "Mr. Potter" of Angel Falls, and Widdop herself effortlessly combines the George Bailey stand-in with something like a Nancy Drew detective. And to have the whole thing be queer positive and pro-family and spiritually cathartic was the balm of the season for me.