Lamar Reviews - "It’s a Wonderful Knife" (Airdate 12/13/2024)

Lamar Reviews - "It’s a Wonderful Knife" (Airdate 12/13/2024)

I’m not a huge fan of Christmas horror movies, but I get it. Christmas is a season of peace and goodwill where people come together and are nice to each other. It’s all about happiness and love, with twinkling lights and white snow. If you are a filmmaker and want to standout, make a movie with this background but introduce an ax murderer dressed like Santa Claus and title the movie Silent Night, Bloody Night! It was released theatrically in 1984 and was fought by the PTA, and large crowds of angry families gathered at theaters and malls around the country to protest the film saying their children were terrified of Santa Claus. 6 days after its release it was pulled from theaters, but not before making $2.4 million. In 1984 that was a lot of money. The cat was out of the bag. There are now over 120 Christmas horror movies.

It’s a Wonderful Knife of course is a play on It’s a Wonderful Life, the Christmas classic.

Instead of Bedford falls, this town is Angel Falls. High School Senior Winnie Carruthers, played by Jane Widdop, comes face to face with a psychotic killer dressed like a faceless angel that is murdering her friends. She manages to kill him and save the town. A year later the town has moved on, acting like nothing had ever happened. Winnie is suffering from the loss of her best friend and probably PSD but nobody seems to care. In her frustration she storms off by herself and while under a mystical aurora of northern lights, she states out loud that the world would be a better place if she had never existed.

This is her George Bailey moment. Now she is thrown in to an alternate reality where the angelic killer is still alive. No one in town knows who she is, even her family, and if she doesn’t set things right, she and everyone she cares about will be murdered.

The movie is 1 hour and 27 minutes, Rated R for bloody violence, drug use and language.

The biggest two stars in this are Joel McHale and Justin Long, if that tells you anything. I will say, Justin Long takes his character as Henry Waters, greedy town developer with a most horrific spray tan, completely over the top. His scene-chewing is highlighted by the whitest veneers I’ve seen since Ross on Friends. He steals every moment he’s in the frame.

Joel McHale is out of place as Winnie’s dad. His snarky personality doesn’t fit with the warmth of a parent, especially one that has lost a child.

The movie has a more low-budget look and feel than I expected in a movie made today. The bloody kills were not inventive or dramatic. Run, stab, stab, jump scare, slice, slice, same ole stuff.

For a horror comedy there is not a lot of horror, and even less actual comedy.

My Score 2 Buds

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