Heart Eyes, 2025.
Directed by Josh Ruben.
Starring Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Jordana Brewster, Devon Sawa, Gigi Zumbado, Ben Black, Chris Parker, Latham Gaines, and Lauren O’Hara.
SYNOPSIS:
For the past several years, the “Heart Eyes Killer” has wreaked havoc on Valentine’s Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. This Valentine’s Day, no couple is safe.
There is some admiration for the bold concept of telling a cornball romance within the slasher sandbox. However, in doing so, director Josh Ruben’s (working from a screenplay by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy) Heart Eyes seems to forget that the core selling point of slashers is reveling in all the killing. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Halloween‘s Laurie Strode, but even her character is surrounded by many supporting characters who exist to die (or have sex first and then die.) With a premise as ridiculous as the one here, which involves a couple of coworkers denying that they are falling for one another throughout one night, now hunted by a prolific Valentine’s Day (specifically, the week leading up to the holiday) serial killer who thinks they are in love following a staged kiss to make an ex-boyfriend jealous, one would presume the film would be filled out with various types of couples to gleefully watch get slaughtered.
On some level, the filmmakers are also aware of this: Heart Eyes begins with a goofy marriage proposal from a guy who amusingly appreciates that his love makes him “think.” That man also goes on a tirade over the phone to a photographer who botched capturing the proposal from afar. It’s not long before all three of these people are murdered within a tone successfully mixing comedy and slasher gore. Part of that is that we don’t care about these lovebirds.
It’s a strong opening that makes way for a meet cute, followed by spending an unforgivable amount of time getting to know clichéd romantic comedy archetypes. Olivia Holt’s (familiar acting in slashers, having recently appeared in Totally Killer) Ally is an advertiser for a jewelry company who has based her latest marketing campaign around doomed romances centered on death. It turns out this is the worst possible timing for that as the Heart Eyes Killer (who has previously terrorized Boston, among other cities) has taken his machete and crossbow to Seattle for the next round of brutality. Newly employed Jay (Mason Gooding, also with prior slasher experience having been in some of the recent Scream installments) is instructed to work with Ally on retooling the marketing and hoping that they are forgiven by some angry commenters (which the film uses to playfully and briefly poke fun at outrage culture.)
The problem is that Heart Eyes is a bit imbalanced, leaning too far into the romantic comedy aspect with broad-strokes characters. She doesn’t believe in storybook romance and gave up pursuing a job in the medical field (she also doesn’t do well around blood) whereas he grew up around failed romances and would like to prove himself and others wrong that there is such a thing as happily ever after. Smashed into this are awkward moments, such as Ally assuming that Jay is trying to steal her job, which is a deflection for her immediate infatuation with the polite hunk. Ally also has a friend coasting by in life, happy with a sugar daddy loving her and erasing her debt, which feels like it would have played a bigger role in a movie that was actually trying to say something interesting about relationships.
After their work meeting/first date, Ally pulls off a performative kiss with Jay to feel like less of a loser in front of her happily partnered ex-boyfriend, which catches the eye of the HEK (who naturally has hearts for eyes on his mask and cut into the handles of his blades.) From there, it’s a series of chase sequences containing truly awkward Marvel-esque cutesy quips during breaks in admittedly dynamic and entertaining action, sometimes with HEK locked in the next room. As such, Ally and Jay stop feeling like real people in danger that we are supposed to care about. In actuality, there is no fear or urgency since they are the protagonists. Nearly everyone else who dies is someone nearby who just happens to be in the way, with the execution itself feeling like an uninspired throwaway.
Then there is the Scream-esque mystery element to the killer’s identity (also backed by Spyglass, this film feels like a panicked pivot in case they were unable to get another sequel in that franchise in the works for reasons that won’t be detailed here), which, at times, goes out of its way to take a play from those movies and rule out possibilities based on the usual expectations. It also attempts to do something comedic with the reveal that falls flat, especially since it’s all still predictable anyway.
The filmmakers deserve some credit for finding some sustained energy and momentum once it transitions into the cat-and-mouse games and for some visceral late kills, but it’s astounding primarily for how many wrong turns the film takes after its excellent opening that gets right the first time how to blend these tricky tones. Heart Eyes is more of an eye-rolling disappointment than anything.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
