It’s a Wonderful Knife
RLJE
Tyler MacIntyre’s It's a Wonderful Knife arrives in a small vacuum of horror in which it offers a plain sailing experience in convention that attempts to combine two pieces of framing within the genre of horror; think along the lines of Christopher Landon’s Freaky and Happy Death Day series. The major difference is that the framing device utilised in both productions to elevate the comedic sensibility and convention of genre is ever so limited and underwhelming within this experience.
This very type of attempted framing used allows the creators to work on narrative elements, comedic sensibility that is reinforced contextually within the experience itself, like Scream and the aforementioned projects. It echoes a nature of not only fun but unpredictability that aligns horror in a more unique example and, quite frankly, for an easier audience experience. Aside from the premise, and perhaps a couple of minutes through its running time, It’s a Wonderful Knife does nothing akin to its contemporaries nor attempt to elevate the mundane. Begging the question to why it’s even using said narrative framing device to begin with as MacIntyre and writer Michael Kennedy – who ironically penned Freaky – make no calculated decision to engross this very nature aside from subtle reference. Due to this neglect, It’s a Wondeful Knife plays like a incredibly staunch and rudimentary horror with little personality and uniqueness which, ultimately, laments the project to imply a sense of lifelessness, wanting to give the impression of being fresh but is actually rotten. It’s a shame, because at its finger tips it has a range of potential in terms of genre and narrative to play with and devise something that is basic but engaging – two elements that are drastically wanted and needed within the box office of late competing against blockbusters but equally as important in the saturated and consistently booming Horror market.
So it fails with narrative, but what does Its a Wonderful Knife get right? Starting with the most basic of elements, MacIntyre’s film understands its horror slasher conventions and crafts terrific terror and blood-filled sequences that do a commendable job of evoking a sense of thrills. Equally as interesting, albeit never above style, is the villain’s use of iconography which is essentially a first edit version of the iconic Scream outfit with a smoothed over mask dressed completely in angelic white. On the surface: what a terrific choice of utilising a villain in white who, over these killings, is stained in victims blood with a tremendous sense of irony and wickedness. However, it’s never utilised to a further degree of surface except to be dressed in white as it’s Christmas. It’s a small bone of contention which ultimately defines this project in general. Nothing throughout the running time evokes a sense of further thought or even a merit of substance aside from the classical convention of its narrative traits. In fact, it actually gives the impression this project may have had quite severe in production re-writes or an edit to go in another direction due to the very brazen and bizzare story arcs and choices this feature takes. One minute it feels a basic premise of re-introducing the plot of It’s a Wonderful Life in the vein of Groundhog Day and then focuses on a aurora in the sky, which is compelling characters’ actions – it is as strange to read as it is to understand in context, don’t worry – and then very briefly convey a sense of mind control akin to Edgar Wright’s The Worlds End? It is all just nonsense, stretching out any and all amounts of narrative to create an identity from piercing all manners of genre together but in turn just feels borderline ambiguous to what it even thinks itself to be, the audience have no chance.
This then leads to performances: they are quintessentially average at best, without once again anything worthy of being above one-dimensional. This is a feature that broaches on the thematic notes of quite harsh tones of trauma, grief, queerness, greed, etc. but these are all slim-lined elements that are never explored to a fulfilling, organic or immersive degree to make this feature have a sense of emotional attachment or even a degree of engagement. It severely lacks a sense of character or charisma, and the resulting lacking screenplay affects performances with the likes of Jane Widdop and Jess McLeod giving nothing of substance due to a screenplay that never wants to expand or explore its characters. And what a crying shame to do so with the plot and framing a perfect device to simply do the bare minimum.
Genuinely, aside from the killers iconography and perhaps Justin Long’s turn as a shitting eating real estate tycoon, this hasn’t aged very well. It’s a Wonderful Knife does little to attempt to examine, explore, or, quite frankly, entertain its audience above the very strict basic insight of substance, and what shame to do so. It just begs disbelief in the creators thinking anything of eighty-seven minutes worthy of a viewers time. Then again, it comes to no surprise that this has also been buried beyond belief to find, or even watch, but with so much horror on offer and better convictions of premises, It’s a Wonderful Knife is truly better off forgotten.
