It’s a Wonderful Knife Director & Writer on Twisting Holiday Classic

Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies, Shudder | Tagged: christmas, exclusive, freaky, horror, interview, It’s A Wonderful Knife, Jane Widdop, Jess McLeod, joel mchale, justin long, katharine isabelle, Katherine Isabelle, michael kennedy, rlje films, shudder, Tyler MacIntyre

Director Tyler MacIntyre & writer Michael Kennedy talk to Bleeding Cool about the RLJE Films/Shudder holiday slasher “It’s a Wonderful Knife.”

When it comes to the pomp and circumstance surrounding Christmas, there’s no question how much of an institution the holiday has become, especially in the entertainment industry. As if the hundreds, if not thousands of films on networks like the Hallmark Channel haven’t done enough to produce redundant holiday cheer, luckily, a subgenre emerged to undermine the sacred traditions in the holiday horror film, which turns the cheers and tears to terror and dread. It’s something writer Michael Kennedy and director Tyler MacIntyre aimed for in their twisted version of It’s a Wonderful Life in the cleverly titled It’s a Wonderful Knife, a dramatic deviation from the 1946 Frank Capra classic that starred Jimmy Stewart. It’s a Wonderful Knife follows Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop), who finds her life is less than wonderful a year after saving her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve, but when she wishes she’d never been born, she finds herself in a nightmare parallel universe and discovers that without her, things could be much, much worse. Now that the killer is back, she must team up with the town misfit to identify the killer and return to reality. Kennedy and MacIntyre spoke to Bleeding Cool about flipping the narrative on the wholesome story, the ensemble cast, cliches they wanted to avoid, and any other tales they wanted a horror spin on.

Taking a Stab at Holiday Horror in ‘It’s a Wonderful Knife”

Bleeding Cool: Michael, what’s the inspiration behind ‘It’s a Wonderful Knife?’
Kennedy: I always wanted to make a Christmas horror movie in the slasher genre, and I loved ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ (1946). It was my dad’s favorite movie, and it’s a family favorite. I had such a great experience on ‘Freaky’ (2020) that I wanted to do another version of that concept with ‘Its Wonderful Life.’ That’s how it came about. I loved ‘Freaky’ so much, and I had these other ideas, and I was like, “Why don’t I marry them all together?”

Tyler, what drew you to the concept of the film?
MacIntyre: I really loved the concept. Once you listen, it’s one of those things that makes you think, “How the hell has that not been done before?” In terms of the script, I had come off another sort of buddy slasher movie with ‘Tragedy Girls’ (2017), and I wanted to put myself in a position where I could use a similar toolset but bring it to a different type of story in that movie is a little bit nihilistic in a way. This one was sweet but not too saccharine.
It had a more positive outlook on humanity, and it would be a fun challenge to try and make a good-hearted slasher movie because you have to get to these dark places in this high-stakes stuff and then have the fun spin of Christmas. It seemed to fit with the juxtaposition of the cherry Christmas imagery with the horrific stuff and then trying to land it all in a way that hit you in the feels. That’s what I felt the script did and what has been our guiding light the whole time.

What went into the casting process of bringing Jane, Jess [McLeod], Joel [McHale], Katharine [Isabelle], and Justin [Long]? I’m shocked that you got William B Davis involved, too. How did that come together?
MacIntyre: It was an ongoing thing. Jane came on early. We were looking for our Winnie, and I had seen them in that show ‘Yellowjackets,’ which I liked a lot; they had an interesting character there being responsible as the comedic relief but also had some poignant moments. They ended up on a list that I had younger performers to look at when the time came; then they did a fantastic read of one of the scenes where Winnie first stepped out into this nightmare world, and they seemed to get thrown for a loop they were. It was easy to follow emotionally, got its comedy, and got its stakes. It seemed obvious once we got their tape, the search was over, and then we decided that we were going to build the cast around Jane.

Michael, were there other Christmas stories that you thought of flipping the narrative on, or was it always going to be ‘It’s a Wonderful Life?’
Kennedy: It was always going to be that. I knew right away that it was going to be that. I loved the original ‘Black Christmas’ (1974), and that’s such a perfect movie that making a severe and terrifying horror film was not the way to go with Christmas. It would always be ‘It’s Wonderful Life’ from the beginning because there was much opportunity to upend some stuff. Also, I always knew I didn’t want to be another Santa Claus killer either. It was an excellent opportunity to take like the Angel of Clarence, take the angel aspect, and make it the killer.
MacIntyre: I always felt Clarence was going to start murdering people.
Kennedy: Yeah, Clarence was a little unhinged.

I figure after everything he’s seen on Earth.
MacIntyre: That’s true.

Were there other horror franchise or holiday film tropes you wanted to avoid or give a nod to?
Kennedy: Story-wise, doing this movie was an excellent opportunity to upend what has now become the opening scene trope of that ‘Scream’ perfected, and it’s been replicated repeatedly. It would be cool doing this story. I was like, “I get to kill the killer in the first 15 to 20 pages,” and upend that expectation; the first 20 minutes almost play like its own movie, which is super fun.
MacIntyre: We threw around a lot of different types of references like we were going to have a couple of things that would naturally make themselves make their way into the movie because it’s a riff on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ There are some quotes there. But we didn’t want it to be like a beat-for-beat remake. We were taking inspiration from there. We looked at a lot of holiday horror and a lot of other types of movies that have two worlds or an alternate reality. We look together at ‘Back to the Future’ (1985), like the sequence where they’re in the alternate reality of Hill Valley. There is some stuff in there that we’re riffing on. I also looked at stuff like ‘Mr. Destiny’ (1990) is the movie with Jim Belushi where he wishes he had a different life and tries to find some elements; how do those movies get the most out of that premise and then figure out what that means for us? There weren’t many things where we were modeling them on a specific sequence other than the ones we started to riff on, like a sequel from ‘Scream 2.’ We all loved them and wanted to do a version. I wouldn’t say a ton of that, and we were too preoccupied.

Tyler, was there any sequence that was harder to execute than the rest or that stood out?
MacIntyre: The ending was a bit tough because there were a lot of extras, moving parts, practical effects, stuff like that, and not a ton of time. That was the biggest issue once you get into a schedule, sometimes availability with actors and locations… it’s not so much a question of you losing time; therefore, you must make it go with a specific plan. It may go off, but regardless, you only have that fixed amount of time. The most difficult thing for me was probably the climax. I like my goal is to protect the story. The walls are caving around you as you try to make the decisions that make it work. We had a good group of collaborators. We understood the game and were able to pivot. As a result, we did a lot of damage to our resources.

You’ve got another project in the works called ‘Time Cut,’ and I was wondering, were there any other IPs you wanted to do like a horror twist on?
Kennedy: Off the top of my head? No, nothing in the works outside of that. It’s not so much like a specific movie, but there’s a fun way to do a rom-com as a slasher, which could be a cool horror movie, which I’m doing. Other than that, I’m excited that I have a couple of projects in the works that are a little bit darker and adult, which is nice. I’m getting ready to flex a new muscle, but I’ll always love these movies and never say never because maybe I’ll watch an old classic and be like, “There’s a horror movie here,” like ‘Miracle on 34th Street.’
MacIntyre: Murder on 34th Street.

RLJE Films & Shudder’s It’s a Wonderful Knife, which also stars Cassandra Naud, is in theaters.

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