” I adore holiday films.” I adore dread films. And I adore Christmas despair films,” says It’s a Wonderful Knife writer Michael Kennedy. Freaky, Kennedy’s album film and a co-written riff on body swap movies, received positive reviews from critics and the general public. What should one do as a follow-up, though?
There have n’t been a lot of Christmas horror movies, I reasoned. The 43-year-old Ohio local says,” That’s what I want to handle following, before we’re shortly and beautifully interrupted on Zoom by his puppy, Bandit. What if I made a horror film out of an old Christmas traditional, I wondered? And the phrase” It’s A Wonderful Life” soon came to mind.
George Bailey ( Jimmy Stewart ), a dejected merchant who decides the world would be better off without him on Christmas Eve, is the subject of the well-known 1946 Frank Capra walnut. An angel intervenes to prevent him from committing suicide by demonstrating what career would have been like in his little town without him. The outcomes are unsettling.
Kennedy says,” As an adult, you realize how stupid black that movie really is and how frightening it can be at times.” The final 30 days have a horrifying quality to them. I then sat down and began to formulate my own story, thinking,” I have a truly sincere way to tell an emotional Christmas flick through the lens of the horror movie.”
The resulting movie, which was directed by Tyler MacIntyre, adheres steadfastly to the movie’s fundamental premise while adding a few clever bends to give it an uncanny edge. It’s a Wonderful Knife, which even nods to Back to the Future Part II, is ultimately less dreadful than it is serious because it uses well-known horror-comedy tropes while encasing them in an engaging story that is rich in heart, self-discovery, and philosophical depth.
Additionally, it is saturated with gay sensibility, which is expected given that Kennedy is a gay person.
He claims,” This was a film where I even produced for the first time, so I had sway over the outcome.” And as a result, I was able to leave.” And by the way, this is probably going to be the loveliest slasher movie you’ve actually seen.” I came to the realization that I was not only allowed to have a large number of homosexual characters, but also an abundance of various types of quarrel personalities.
Kennedy compares the experience of horror film heroines to his own teenage years, such as Knife‘s Winnie Carruthers ( forcefully portrayed by Jane Widdop ), whose inability to express her sorrow over losing her best friend to a white-frocked killer known as The Angel.
Kennedy remembers that there was a time in his life when I was bullied at school, could n’t talk to my parents about what was happening in my life, and I felt incredibly alone. The only occasion I truly felt regular was when I watched Laurie Strode from Halloween or Nancy Thompson from Nightmare on Elm Street fight and win. It seemed as though these imaginary heroes were the only ones who could relate to what I was experiencing.
He continues,” I was obsessed with them and truly am drawn to them, which is why my shows have these personal lines. In the end, what the main protagonist is coming to terms with is more important than a serial killer. It has to do with individuality.
Kennedy addresses the new trend in horror movies in favor of a lighter tone, one that prioritizes amusing, surreal roller coaster thrills over pure, pure terror. Current examples include Totally Killer and Five Nights at Freddy’s, in addition to Its a Great Knife and Freaky.
He claims,” There are so many different types of horror than we were accustomed to in the history.” For a while, you would simply receive specific sub-genres. There were a ton of teenage horror films in the 1990s. Additionally, there was a oversupply of definitely bloody horror movies in the early 1980s. Then there was abuse movie in the 2000s.
However, I believe that this is the first time in history that multiple types of dread films are being released at once. There are a number of current changes. You have your frightful A24 horror films, but there’s also your high-concept comedies in a killer offer. I believe we simply have more enjoyable selections, so I’m not sure if it’s becoming less frightening.
He concludes,” I think also, very openly, there definitely is an element of it getting harder to scare folks because life itself is so terrible.” We’ve just come out of a really dark time, and we’re also going through some gloomy times, but I believe that after COVID and after Trump, people are starting to laugh once more. That explains why you’re seeing more humorous horror films, which I personally believe wo n’t happen for another year or two before turning the tide into something more sinister.
Theaters all over the country are showing It’s a Great Knife. Eventually, it will only be available on Shudder. Go to http. www.fandango.com or www .shudder.com
