I’m the best, Fuck the Rest
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) is a new horror-comedy that borrows from the “what would the world be like if I never existed” trope, and throws it in a slasher.
Starring Jane Widdop (a Yellowjacket!), Joel McHale (a lawyer!), Justin Long (a walrus!), and Katharine Isabelle (a werewolf!), this movie was, sadly, a regrettable watch for me. Before we get into this, I know that this film is supposed to be “funny”, and it’s possible that jokes and events that made me roll my eyes might give you a chuckle.
The Premise / Summary
Protagonist Winnie (Widdop) is a normal girl, with a normal family, in a normal town, whose dad, David (McHale) is a realtor !It’s never really clarified what he does. He is either a realtor, or a lawyer. working for the town big shot Henry Waters (Long). Henry is the unseasonably tanned rich white man who wants to buy as much land as possible in the town to build a big gaudy shopping mall.
At the outdoor Christmas Eve Festival where we are introduced to the town and our main characters, David leaves the family to go with Henry to try and convince the last homeowner to sell his land. During this, we get a VERY soft touch of Scrooge, with the comparison of David being the good boy having to work on Christmas Eve, but this is extremely shallow and doesn’t go anywhere.
Cut over to Winnie and her best friend (we know they are besties because of their super best friend handshake) heading over to a party, where we also meet Winnie’s boyfriend (Generic Dude #1) and one of their other good friends (Generic Girl #1).
We also meet “Weirdo”, an awkward girl who others bully far more aggressively than what makes sense. She’s at this party alone, and gets verbally abused, as well as has snacks and even drinks thrown at her. There seems to be no motivation for this treatment other than “because the script says so”.
And now the story begins
Later in the night, a costumed person !the costume is actually pretty cool IMO. The logic part of my brain doesn’t like that it’s white since it would show blood so easily, but it looks cool and is somewhat unique breaks into the home of the aforementioned homeowner who refused to sell his land, and (gasp) murders him.
This killer then goes to the party that Winnie is at and kills her best friend, as well as tries to kill her and her brother. Oh ya, Winnie has a brother – he’s actually a pretty cool dude, but more on him later.
In order to save her brother, she grabs the worlds most conveniently placed booster/jumper cables (the kind that you use to recharge a car battery) and electrocutes the killer, killing him. Removing the mask, it’s revealed that the killer was, ba bah baaahhhhh, Henry Waters!
Just so you know now, we never learn why the killer/Henry went to this party, why he killed bestie, or why he tried to kill Winnie and her brother. The script gods must have demanded it !NOTE: Bestie is the grandaughter of the murdered homeowner, but why go after Winnie? And why the other kids? And why in a public setting? And why didn’t he just wait for bestie to go home so he could kill both at the same time?.
We now have a time skip of one year, the following Christmas Eve. At the family home, we also get introduced to Winnie’s Aunt Gale (Isabelle) and her partner. The family decides to open one present before Christmas day, and Winnie opens her first – an ugly pink workout tracksuit from her father.
Obviously not thrilled at this gift, she agrees to go upstairs to put it on because at the end of the day it would make her dad happy to see her in it. But when she comes back downstairs, her family has left the family room. Heading outside, she sees that her father bought her brother a brand new pickup truck.
When her brother notices her outside and her expression of hurt, he immediately speaks up and says “no no don’t worry, this truck is for both of us! Dad got it for US. You can drive it any time you want, I promise”. Because her brother is a good dude. But the truck was obviously just for him.
Now, I really don’t like this scene for several reasons, but the two largest are that A) come on, how dumb is David, the father, that he thought this was a good or fair thing to do, and B) what happens next is textbook telling instead of showing.
We now have Winnie just tell us, with wordy-words, how the last year has been so hard because her best friend was murdered and how SHE KILLED A GUY, but no one cares, no one talks about it, no one even wants to mention it, blah blah blah !You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!. She goes back inside and prepares to go to another party.
Now at the party, she looks for her boyfriend and finds him getting it on with her other friend, Generic Girl #1. And they are relieved that they’ve been caught, because this has been going on for a year. That’s right, as in since the night of the murders. As in her boyfriend and other good friend decided to have a year-long affair after one of their best friends gets murdered, and their other kills the killer. Riiiiiggghhht. Upset, Winnie storms out and…
When you wish upon a star aurora
Above in the sky is a massive Aurora and in her sadness, Winnie wishes that she never existed. And her wish is granted.
Now, something I forgot to mention above is that just after the time skip, Winnie is walking through town when she gets accosted by a random strange man who we’ve never seen before. Turns out this man was Henry’s brother, who was never mentioned before now.
Walking home, a person dressed in the same killer costume attacks, but Winnie is able to flag down a cop in a car. Turns out this cop is Buck Waters, brother to Henry, and he is the current sheriff. Confused, Winnie chirps at him asking since when was he a cop, but Buck responds confused and like he has no idea who she is. I’ll skip the tediousness and just confirm now that no one knows who she is, including her friends and family.
This is one of the few scenes I enjoyed, as the sheriff Buck has lines like “Can we get some more caution tape? I feel like we could be more cautious”, and “Let’s get the dogs here. They won’t be able to track down the killer, but I like the vibe”.
It turns out that in this timeline, since Winnie never existed, Henry was never stopped or caught, and he even successfully killed her brother. This caused her father to become distant, and her mother to become a drunk. The killer also seems to strike every few weeks, usually targeting teens.
Blah blah blah, the only person she can get on her side is Weirdo girl. Winnie convinces Weirdo that the killer is Henry, and they surmise that she needs to kill Henry in this timeline in order to go back to her own. There is also this very stupid subplot of how in this timeline, her cheating boyfriend and shit-queen of a friend are in love and were “meant to be together”. Fuck off.
For reasons that I either cannot remember, or were never explained, they decide to go to Winnie’s house so she can talk to her father again. I genuinely cannot remember what this was meant to accomplish, but at the end of it, the killer shows up and kills her mom.
In an incredibly stupid scene, the killer is knocked out in front of the stairs, so our “heroes” need to lightly tip-toe around the killer so that… they don’t wake him up? Do they think being knocked unconscious is the same as sleeping?
Big reveal upcoming. Hope you are ready.
The killer loses his mask, and it’s not Henry. It’s her dad! Apparently, at the loss of his only child (in this timeline), Henry was able to warp David’s mind into taking over as the killer. Her dad has been donning the costume every few weeks since. It’s never explained what David’s motivations for killing are, why he mainly targets kids, or what Henry gets out of this, but, here we are.
The final battle
I’m going to skip a bunch of filler and get right into it. They start by setting up a trap for David in a movie theatre. It’s never explained how David knew they’d be in there or what made Winnie think that her Dad would look for her there (especially since he’s not her dad in this timeline), but shut up, this is a Christmas horror-comedy.
They do dumb battle, and dumb David die. But she’s still in this timeline? If you have two braincells, then you have already figured out that she needs to kill the original killer, Henry, in order to go back.
So they track down Henry who is doing a political rally, but Henry has the towns people… in a trance? Possessed? Zombified? It’s weird and comes out of nowhere. They do dumb battle, Winnie kills dumb Henry, and wakes up in her own bed.
Oh ya, Henry was also the town mayor. It doesn’t really matter other than his motto is “I’m the best, fuck the rest” ⇾ which is actually pretty good coming from Justin Long
Excited, she runs downstairs, tells her family she loves them, and then runs into the street to find Weirdo, her new bestie. She passes the cheating douchcanoe boyfried and slutfaceMcgee, but tells them that she forgives them and supports them being together.
Arriving at Weirdos house, she knocks and waits for Weirdo to open the door, and finds out that she somehow remembers all the events of the other timeline even though no one else does the fucking end.
Final Thoughts
This is FAR from being the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but overall I cannot recommend It’s a Wonderful Knife. The plot is nonsensical, the subplots are insulting (can we stop normalizing cheating please), the talented cast is wasted, and the jokes were soft and far between.
Also, they named Katharine Isabelle’s character Gale Prescott. You are not paying homage to a better film by doing that, just making me wish I was watching Scream instead.