Christmas is only a few days away, and we’re starting to ramp up! Thankfully, the 12 days of Christmas actually ends on January 5, so we still have plenty of time to get through these movies together. Next up? A horror movie! You know I love a good Christmas horror movie. Pooka! was a hit. I loved Black Christmas. You get the idea. Plus, Joel McHale is in this movie, and the title has a fun pun in it, so what could possibly go wrong? Let’s run it through the ‘ole Christmas scale and see.
What’s kind of fun about this one is, based on the title alone, you probably get the idea of what this movie is about. But here’s the deal. Winnie (Jane Widdop) saved her whole town (Angel Falls) from a masked killer called “the Angel” who attacked her friends on Christmas Eve. But a year later, Winnie’s life isn’t so wonderful. In fact, she wonders if everyone would just be better off if she’d never been born. So with a bit of Christmas magic, she gets transported to a parallel universe where she doesn’t exist. And of course, that means a slasher is still on the loose!
Warning: some mild spoilers for It’s A Wonderful Knife in this review. So sorry about that! I had to do it.
Romance: 10/10. I hate to lead with this, because this is probably the most interesting part of the movie, but I guess we should also get this out in the open right away. No one has been advertising this, but It’s A Wonderful Knife is delightfully queer. First of all, Winnie’s aunts are lesbians. But more important, Winnie is BI, Y’ALL! And she has a cute little queer romance in this movie.
Quick overview of Winnie’s romantic life: In her original timeline, Winnie is dating a boring dude who has been cheating on her with her best friend the whole time. When he dumps her, this is part of the reason she feels like maybe everyone would be better off if she’d never been born. There’s also this “weirdo” girl called Bernie who no one likes for some reason.
Lesbians! Yay!
Welp, in the new timeline where no one knows who Winnie is, Winnie’s ex-boyfriend and her friend have been dating for a long time and she realizes maybe they were better off together anyway and she just got in the way of that. Meanwhile, Winnie finds a companion in Bernie, who helps her track down the killer. They fall in love, and it’s super cute. When Winnie finally goes back to her timeline, she’s worried Bernie won’t remember her in that way. BUT… by the. power of Christmas magic (I guess?), when Winnie shows up at Bernie’s front door at the end of the movie, Bernie remembers her and they go get a sweet, romantic, queer brunch together. I assume. Extra star added to this movie on Letterboxd for this romance plot.
Morality: 8/10. The morality of this movie was a liiiiittle bit muddled, but I think overall its heart is in the right place. It’s revealed at the beginning of the movie that “the Angel” is Henry Waters (played by Justin Long and some bonkers teeth). Waters is the mayor of Angel Falls. He’s egotistical and horribly greedy. Why does he murder people? To destroy Winnie’s family and build a super mall called Waters Cove. In the original timeline, Winnie stops this from happening. But when she wishes she’d never been born, she creates a world where Winnie never stopped the Angel and so Henry Waters succeeded in his plan. So not only are murders still happening, but capitalism has won. And the world is worse for it. Even her father (played by Joel McHale) gets sucked into the evil captalism vortex. So yeah… in a nutshell, capitalism is bad. This is a message I can get behind.
Music: 5/10. I’m going to be honest. I watched this movie a week ago, and there are no needle drop moments that stand out to me. I just looked up the soundtrack, and apparently there’s a version of “Deck the Halls” sung by Joel McHale in this movie? I do not have any recollection of this. So the music doesn’t play a huge role in the movie, but there are a bunch of Christmas songs, including one by Joel McHale. So we’ll give this five stars.
We support Joel McHale doing anything Christmassy
Christmas Spirit: 7/10. Stylistically, this movie looks very Christmassy. The Angel as a killer is dressed in all white, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you’re planning on killing a bunch of people and splattering blood everywhere. But it passed the Christmas vibe check. Still, I watched this movie with my husband, and he just couldn’t get over the impracticality of wearing an all-white outfit when you’re knifing people to death. IRL, this guy would probably be wearing a Santa suit, don’t you think? But maybe that’s a little overdone. I don’t know. All I’m saying is the white outfit was CONTROVERSIAL. At least in my house.
Warmth: 7/10. Family is a huge part of this movie. In both timelines, the Angel kills Winnie’s brother, and we see how much that tears the family apart. In the timeline where Winnie never existed, her mother and father have been completely destroyed by their son’s death. And Winnie’s attempts to convince them that she is their daughter are difficult for them to believe, especially considering they lost their only son. She tries especially hard to get her father to believe her, but this never really ends in a satisfying reconciliation in this timeline. For a movie that seems so intent on delivering the message of family being more important than wealth, it would have been nice to see more come of that at the end of the movie.
Our total?
37/50 = 74%/C. Sadly, this is our highest score so far. As much as I wanted to love this movie, it was just okay. On paper, this is my dream Christmas movie. A queer horror comedy? Yes. Amazing. But it just didn’t come together as much as I wanted it to. Still definitely worth a watch if you’re looking for a fun Christmas movie this season! It’s now available to stream on pretty much every streaming service.