“Heart Eyes” is the newest movie from director Josh Ruben. Ruben also directed 2021’s “Werewolf’s Within” and several episodes of the series “Die Hart”. The film follows Alley, Olivia Holt, and Jason, Mason Gooding, as the Heart Eyes Killer hunts them down.
The Heart Eyes Killer kills couples every Valentine’s day. The massacres have been going on for three years at this point, each time in a different city.
The killer is always two steps ahead, but the cops have worked out that the murders are a part of some twisted kink. Now, the killer is targeting Alley and Jason.
However, the two are not a couple. The killer mistakes them for one after Alley kisses Jason in an attempt to make her ex-boyfriend jealous.
The film is a delicate mix of a slasher and a rom-com, featuring many staples of both genres. They use almost every rom-com cliche in the book, but the movie puts a comedic spin on them like Alley breaking Jason’s nose when they bump heads or the two being scolded for holding up the line during a meet-cute.
These moments add to the film’s already great comedy while also reflecting on Alley and Jason’s seemingly never ending quest for love.
Alley believes that she is always running from love and she ends up pushing people away because of that. Jason’s mother and father absolutely hated each other and he ends up coming on strong to those he’s interested in to subconsciously stick it to his parents.
These character traits make it initially very hard to believe that these two would ever be a couple. However, near-death experiences bring people closer, and as they run from the killer they end up believingly falling for each other thanks to the great performances from the actors.
There is a lot to be said for this movie as a rom-com, but unfortunately not a whole lot to say on the slasher side. The kills in this movie are pretty tame and uncreative.
Only four of the 14 on-screen kills were actually creative, which is not a great ratio. The movie briefly shows a news report about another spree the killer went on at a spa, and that scene could have helped the film’s kills if it had happened on-screen.
The post-credit scene hints that the Heart Eyes Killer could return in the future, and a sequel is not a bad idea. Maybe this could be an anthology series that covers different couples with copy-cat killers.
Until that happens, this is the only movie in the series, and it is a pretty good one. The film’s a great rom-com with funny dialogue, but pretty underwhelming horror.