It's a Wonderful Knife

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.

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.

I don't normally do reviews but this one had so many bad reviews I felt I should add one on what I think.

. I liked it. I thought it was cute. It had a rather uplifting story about how anyone can make a difference and how important family can be.

It wasn't really a horror movie, it was more about how helping one person can make a difference in their life.

The main character was very likable and the bad guy was somebody you couldn't wait to see killed.

The characters may be may have been over the top, but it made the story interesting watching.

I think it's a good movie for somebody who just wants to watch a Christmas story with a little bit of horror.

I really enjoyed the movie. I thought Justin Long was great and the whole concept was pretty cool. Almost like a Freaky Friday or Totally Killer. The cast did decent for what they were working with. The kills weren't original, but the gore and effects were pretty sweet. I'm a huge fan of both Joel McHale and Justin Long. Joel from "The Soup" days, and Justin from Jeepers Creepers and, most recently, Barbarian. I love how versatile Justin Long is. He can play Jess' boyfriend in New Girl and be the biggest dork, then play an evil Mayor in Its a Wonderful Knife and absolutely kill it! If you like cheesy slashers with gore and fun kills, you'll enjoy this.

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.