It’s a Wonderful Knife is queer as hell Christmas horror packed with cleavers and clever twists

It’s A Wonderful Knife. // Courtesy RLJE Films

Frank Capra’s 1946 opus It’s a Wonderful Life remains one of the only holiday films that feels slightly more fun each year on revisit, instead of the slightly diminishing returns over time of other Yuletide classics. Part of the charm is just how goddamned good the film is—line after impossibly well written line, delivered by performers at the height of their game. Less frequently celebrated among its attributes is simply how outrageously deep into tonal darkness it allows itself to sink, especially in a film bookended by flashing astral bodies lamenting the bureaucracy of Heaven’s working class.

With nearly a century of holiday films that live in its debt, its shadow, or as direct spoof, it’s hard to imagine someone bringing anything noteworthy to a re-imagining of such a seminal work in overworked territory. Luckily, queer as hell horror Christmas slasher It’s a Wonderful Knife not only delivers the goods as a blood-soaked comedy, it’s also built on such solid emotional grounding that it’s a legit impressive feat in a frantic 87 minute-long tale.

Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop) saves her town from a psychopathic murderer (Justin Long) on Christmas Eve. But a year later, she’s starting to believe that the world would have better if she’d never been born. As Christmas wishes like this often go in such films, Winnie finds herself in a parallel universe where she was never born. The idylic town of Angel Falls (yes, there’s a lot of nods like this but they’re very cute) is much, much worse than she could have imagined. A cast of friends and family including Joel McHale, Katharine Isabelle, Jess McLeod, and Cassandra Naud round out a town on the brink of unyielding bloodsport with only bad vibes and rage to beat back the inevitable.

The Christmas slasher comes from writer Michael Kennedy (Freaky) and director Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls) and the Nancy Drewification of a holiday Scream sings above and beyond what the punny title would lead you to expect. Splitting up character tropes and evil plans squarely across capitalistic and egocentric ambitions, the filmmakers and actors clearly had as much fun carving up this fresh take on existential honesty and kindness as the audience has watching it spill out on the screen. From the masked killer’s angelic white emptiness to Long’s otherworldly Walton Goggins impression, this sets the bar high for this year’s holiday genre hijinks.

It’s a Wonderful Knife is out via Shudder on AMC+ and everywhere you rent movies on December 1st.

It’s A Wonderful Knife. // Courtesy RLJE Films