The new film It’s a Wonderful Knife begins by employing the kind of bright storytelling beats and lighthearted visual language that would have ranked the name between holiday movie classics and normal Christmas-story offerings on something like Hallmark Channel.
But when other people start dying in graphic and horrific ways, we temporarily realize it’s something else. And for those, the film, depending on this stark contrast, was entirely intentional in an effort to create something new and original.
“We knew we had that unique advantage in a movie that few horror movies have. Because we take existing things and pass them on – ha, ha, ha, not so familiar!You know?” explained Michael Kennedy, the film’s screenwriter.
As the name suggests, It’s a Wonderful Knife can be described as a horror reimagining of the 1946 Christmas vintage It’s a Wonderful Life. In this older story, protagonist George Bailey, a businessman struggling to stay afloat in the face of life’s obstacles, wishes he had never been born. She is then granted this wish, to realize how worse things are without him.
The protagonist of the new film, Winnie Carruthers, has a wish one night. However, the novelty when his wish is fulfilled is not only that the lives of all his loved ones are worse, but also that a masked killer whom he had arrested earlier is still a giant in this new timeline.
The film is part of a developing subgenre of family stories reimagined in the form of slasher films. Perhaps the most important of these is director Christopher Landon’s 2017 Happy Death Day, which inspired 1993’s Groundhog Day. From there, screenwriter Michael Kennedy teamed up with Christopher Landon for 2020’s Freaky. In this intriguing reimagining of the well-known Freaky Friday story, this time the murderer and the protagonist transfer bodies.
So it was after completing Freaky that Kennedy, stuck in COVID lockdowns a few years ago, fondly recalled his reports on that film and wondered how else he could tell a story in that style. He knew he was looking to tell a happier story and a positive story given the dark present of the real world, and also that he was looking for his next assignment to take a place in the Christmas space.
And all of this has resulted in a Christmas horror movie that makes no bones about its gore, violence, and other mature imagery, but a story that simultaneously aims to be comforting and uplifting in its resolution.
“Someone told us it was the healthiest horror movie they’d ever seen. And I take that as a huge compliment,” Kennedy said.
Since The Task plays freely with the conventions of many genres, the pleasure of watching the film can be unexpected as it jumps between styles. But director Tyler MacIntyre, who describes himself as someone who grew up on the horror comedies of his childhood, sees the genres as more complementary than one might expect.
“I definitely see horror and comedy as two sides of the same coin, you know? Or they are based on misdirection. Like you’re building towards a scary moment, or you’re building towards one place, and then all of a sudden you take it to another place, and it’s a joke, you know? And they are kind of palate cleansers for others,” MacIntyre said.
[LR] Jess McLeod as Bernie Simon and Jane Widdop as Winne Carruthers, two of the other people behind theArray. . . [ ] murderer.
MacIntyre explains that in creating the images of the city seen on screen, especially in the main timeline, he sought to change the language of wholesome Christmas movies like Miracle on 34th Street and Home Alone. But at the same time, he sought to use the expectations around those conventions to take unforeseen turns, ultimately strengthening horror and comedy. As he says, although the beginning of the film looks like a Hallmark movie, the setting of the exchange timeline intentionally looks like a Hallmark movie. who vomited.
“And that’s part of the laughter. You can juxtapose that uplifting, joyful Christmas power with terrible things. And that gets a lot of laughs,” MacIntyre said.
While Kennedy has been working on two slasher reimaginings, it might be worth wondering if he plans to do this sort of thing in the near future. And when asked, he replied that he had some other task in the paintings that would shake up a genre, but not in the same way as before. His paintings in this commission, as with Freaky, return in collaboration with Christopher Landon.
It’s a Wonderful Knife is in theaters lately. The film stars Jane Widdop, Joel McHale, and Justin Long.
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