Attempt because it does to mash slasher and Christmas image collectively into some sort of a yuletide “Scream,” “It’s a Fantastic Knife” so badly miscalculates each genres that you simply depend down the minutes, wishing for a guardian angel to save lots of its likable younger stars from the film they’re caught in.
You may see the way it obtained greenlit with that simply marketable, punny title. And to its credit score, few horror films function as many queer central and supporting characters. But a tongue-in-cheek twist on Frank Capra’s 1946 “It’s a Fantastic Life” through which a remaining lady needs to undo her trauma ought to be infinitely smarter and extra entertaining than what writer-producer Michael Kennedy (author of 2020’s “Freaky”) and director Tyler MacIntyre (“Tragedy Ladies”) cynically serve up right here.
Teen Winnie Carruthers (“Yellowjackets“’ Jane Widdop) has a brilliant future forward of her as the vacations descend on idyllic Angel Falls, a Hallmark Channel-ready city described, with out additional rationalization, because the “Christmas capital of the world.” That’s till a masked killer in a snow-white gown murders her greatest pal Cara (Hana Huggins) one festive Dec. 24 earlier than Winnie does him in, unmasking him as Henry Waters (Justin Lengthy), the ruthless actual property tycoon her dad (Joel McHale) has been toiling away for in a sinister land-development scheme.
One presumably untherapized yr later, Winnie is depressed, has been rejected from artwork college and discovers her boyfriend’s been dishonest on her. Largely, she will’t fathom how everybody else is ready to blissfully transfer on. “No college, no greatest pal, no boyfriend — nobody cares,” she sighs, wishing she was by no means born. Like Capra’s suicidal hero, she will get her want, solely to search out herself in an alternate actuality the place, with out her, the “Angel” killer has claimed dozens extra victims and turned Angel Falls right into a dystopian hellscape owned by Waters.
Justin Lengthy, heart, within the film “It’s a Fantastic Knife.”
(RLJE / Shudder)
So begins the actual story on this low-budget horror-comedy, which largely consists of Winnie working round making an attempt to persuade her household and associates that she is aware of them whereas the killer retains hanging. On this timeline, her beloved brother Jimmy (Aiden Howard) is a sufferer, leaving their father and mom Judy (Erin Boyes) grieving, messy shells of their former selves. However her cool aunt Gale (“Ginger Snaps”’ Katharine Isabelle) and college misfit Bernie (Jess McLeod) imagine her. They crew as much as cease the killings, get Winnie again to her actual life, and … what was the purpose of all this, once more?
Like this fall’s a lot better-conceived and executed “Completely Killer,” “Knife” takes a stab at injecting a widely known premise into the slasher style. However as its poorly-paced plot meanders additional off beam, throwing random components on the wall (a mystical aurora borealis thriller, a mind-control twist, a late-breaking romance), it not solely turns into more and more tedious however utterly forgets the explanation why Winnie makes her demise want within the first place. (Which is ironic, since her justifiable misery was partly resulting from how everybody round her stopped caring concerning the violent homicide of her BFF, one of many solely important non-white characters within the film. The movie doesn’t appear to care both.)
MacIntyre, a style filmmaker with a narrative credit score on the latest “5 Nights at Freddy’s,” decks the halls with gore and blood splatter (a teen makeout forcefully interrupted by an enormous sweet cane is one vicious visible spotlight). However “Knife” speeds by way of its horror setups with out taking time to construct precise dread or emotion, forsaking a path of low-cost, meaningless deaths that hardly appear to influence its heroine, least of all anybody within the viewers. Lengthy enjoys free rein as a spray-tanned villain with pretend veneers and Trumpian aspirations, however is much less efficient right here than he was in “Barbarian,” which kicked off his latest style run.
Even the design of the Angel — a slick all-white ensemble with a masks that obscures your complete face — falls wanting menacing, as if it had been created to look cool on a poster or mass-produced in Spirit Halloween shops, reasonably than add to the movie’s lore.
The “Angel” killer terrorizes an idyllic city in “It’s a Fantastic Knife.”
(RLJE / Shudder )
Any brilliant spots are primarily because of the candy chemistry between its leads. The versatile Widdop pluckily carries the movie by way of its clumsiest tonal confusions, whereas McLeod brings a profitable empathy, sensitivity and deadpan timing to the sort of standout flip that ought to entice extra and higher roles sooner or later.
The true disgrace is that “Knife” hampers them with winking exchanges like: “You’re George Bailey!” “Will you be my Clarence?” However the forged makes essentially the most of what they’re given, with extra highlights from McHale as tortured dad David, Sean Depner as Waters’ bumbling brother Buck, and Isabelle incomes MVP standing because the wise-cracking Gale, one of many few adults who really sees Winnie even earlier than her Christmas want goes flawed.
In relation to remoted and susceptible younger individuals considering self-harm, the movie’s muddled themes are no less than rooted in good intentions. And when Ma Carruthers hangs a rainbow decoration on the tree for “my homosexual son” to Jimmy’s mortification, nicely, no less than she’s making an attempt?
However as effortlessly because it creates area for LGBTQ+ and nonbinary inclusion on this small-town image of heightened Americana, it’s befuddling how a lot “Knife” relegates its few characters of shade to the sideline and the sufferer pile because it bumbles its technique to a superficially saccharine ending. (In equity, the killer doesn’t appear to discriminate.) In Angel Falls we see some progress, however it’s one other white Christmas, certainly.
#Fantastic #Knife #evaluation #Xmas #slasher #minimize