It wouldn’t be horror movie season without a couple of trailers for slashers, right? With Eli Roth finally making his “Thanksgiving” trailer from “Grindhouse” a full-blown feature film, it’s safe to assume audiences don’t need another holiday-set slasher this year. Not so fast. Here comes “It’s A Wonderful Knife,” a Christmas slasher that mixes the sub-genre’s formula with the premise of the 1946 holiday classic starring Jimmy Stewart.
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Sound a little out there to anyone else? It only makes sense that “Freaky” writer Michael Kennedy pens the script for “It’s A Wonderful Knife,” a slasher with a “Freaky Friday” twist. In this new film, though, a teenage girl saves her hometown from a psychotic killer, but can’t live with consequences. Wishing she’d never been born, she’s suddenly transported to an alternate reality where the masked killer is still alive, and things are much, much worse.
Director Tyler MacIntyre talked to EW about the film for the drop of its first trailer. “”It’s a Wonderful Knife” is a spin on the classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,”” MacIntrye told EW. “It’s about a young woman named Winnie Carruthers who lives in this town that’s obsessed with Christmas. There’s this tragedy that strikes the town, and she rises to the occasion, but her best friend is killed. We jump forward a year, and she’s wracked with guilt, and she’s unable to move on, and in her spiral she ends up making this wish that maybe things would be better if she didn’t exist. She wakes up into a nightmare version of this town, and there’s many more people dead, and it’s up to her to solve this mystery before it’s too late.”
“It’s A Wonderful Knife” stars “Yellowjackets” actress Jane Widdop as Winnie Carruthers. The movie also stars Justin Long, fresh off a memorable turn in “Barbarian” last year, as the town’s mayor, Joel McHale, Jess McLeod, Katharine Isabelle, and William B. Davis.
Horror fans will know MacIntyre from directing 2017’s “Tragedy Girls” and a segment of “V/H/S/99.” He’s also a frequent editor on horror movies, and has a screen story credit on the upcoming “Five Nights At Freddy’s” movie. But MacIntyre wanted to do something distinct with “It’s A Wonderful Knife,” and wanted Justin Long along for the ride. “I’ve been a huge fan of Justin’s work for many years, and I love the out-there stuff like “Tusk,”” says MacIntyre. “I was looking for a big Christmas villain. We talked about a lot of references of showman-politicians, and that sort of baby boomer-smarminess, and he was channeling some of that.”
With its unconventional premise, “It’s A Wonderful Knife” could be a sleeper for horror fans this Halloween season. The film has its world premiere at Beyond Fest in LA this weekend on October 8. The movie then hits theaters on November 10. And expect to pop up on Shudder at some point, as they help co-produce the film.
Watch the trailer for “It’s A Wonderful Knife” below.
