MINI REVIEW: It's A Wonderful Knife (2023)
And in some alternative universe this was probably a wonderful idea too.
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When I was a teenager I always wondered if the people who were 20 years older than me looked at films like Scream or Thirteen Ghosts and thought: “wow, these movies are Gen X rubbish! Give me the good old horror films from the 70s”?
I am now officially that person.
I know it’s going to be cool to hate on this film. And usually, I avoid piling onto the hate brigade, and I would just ignore a film like this, but the problem is this movie is using the plot of one of my favourite Christmas movies of all time. And to be honest, I have always wanted to see a horror movie based on It’s A Wonderful Life.
I just hoped it would be a lot, lot better than this.
PLOT
A year after stopping a knife-wielding, mask-wearing killer in her hometown, young Winnie Carruther’s life has turned 180. While everyone around her acts like nothing happened, her life has fallen apart.
She makes a wish that she didn’t exist, and her wish is granted. Now she finds herself in an alternative version of her town where the killer hasn’t been caught, her brother is dead, and the sadistic developer who was bullying the townsfolk into selling their land to him is now the mayor, and completely controls everyone’s life.
With the help of an outcast, she sets to right the wrongs and return to her version of reality.
ABOUT THE FILM
Everything about this movie sounds like it’s a winner. The plot, the title and the casting of Justin Long are all the movie’s strong points.
And even a nice cameo from The Cigarette Smoking Man off The X-Files brought back all those 90’s nostalgia feels for me.
Then the movie hit us with what I should have expected: characters whose sexual identity are far more important than making sure they were actually good characters you cared about. Digital CGI blood that looks so horrible you wonder why the effects budget couldn’t extend to allow a white jumper to get dirty.
And then there’s the excessive drug use. It’s almost as if the script writer has no idea how to be subtle and just wants to make sure you know that life sucks for this generation, as if they are the first generation to ever have it bad.
But there are some decent moments in the film. The handful of references to the film it’s homaging (is that a word?) are welcomed, the outfit of the killer looks decent and the nods to Scream with the dual killers and characters names are not as groan worthy as they initially appear.
It’s just hard to see this being a franchise, especially with this entry being so ridiculously poor in almost everything it attempted to achieve.
What are my overall thoughts?
Whenever you anticipate a film, also be prepared to be severely disappointed by it. For me, that happened at about the 10-minute mark, and I only stubbornly kept watching because I wanted to see how they were going to play with the theme of the film.
If someone could take the script, strip out all the crap, get a proper effects team in and improve the casting - but keep Justin Long - we would have probably had a winner.
But this is a just another Christmas turkey.
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Genre Comedy Slasher Horror
Director Tyler MacIntyre
Starring Jane Widdop, Jess McLeod, Joel McHale, Justin Long
Original Title
Country of Origin USA
Release Date November 10 2023
It’s A Wonderful Knife Life USA Slasher Comedy Movie Horror 2023 Christmas movie review