Heart Eyes

In Heart Eyes, the Heart Eyes Killer or HEK has been at large for two years. HEK generally targets couples in love but will kill anyone just because. As HEK shows up in a town that has the biggest boner in existence for the romantic holiday, Ally (Olivia Holt) realizes that her marketing career may be over.

Ally has created an entire ad campaign for jewelry revolving around romantic couples dying and the company she works for is scrambling to create something new last minute. They call in a freelancer named Jay (Mason Gooding) to brainstorm something that will save the campaign and the company.

Ally, who not so secretly hates her job, is obsessed with her ex-boyfriend who is constantly posting on social media about his new love interest. Ally is overwhelmingly bitter over the concept of love while Jay is the opposite and is a complete sucker for falling head over heels for a soulmate. Ally believes that Jay wants to take her job, but the two begin to show interest in one another which puts them right into the swinging distance of the machete slashing and crossbow slinging HEK.

From director Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within) and writers Phillip Murphy (Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), Christopher Landon (Freaky, Happy Death Day 2U), and Michael Kennedy (It’s a Wonderful Knife), Heart Eyes is probably the dumbest concept for a recent slasher film but cashes in on Valentine’s Day for the horror genre.

The slasher film begins with a couple attempting to have the perfect proposal. HEK brutalizes them with arrows and a compression chamber that squeezes until the victim inside is a gooey squish. Apart from the mask, HEK dons an all-leather outfit and the loudest black boots the world has ever heard. The camera also seems to hover around HEK’s crotch like it doesn’t want to show its face even though they’re always wearing a mask.

Heart Eyes is a romantic comedy caterpillar cocooned within a slasher film. The film feels like a romantic movie parody since it is consistently pointing out its ridiculousness. The humor comes off as extremely meta since the film feels like a mockery of someone watching the film rather than taking part in it.

After the Happy Death Day films, Freaky, It’s a Wonderful Knife, and even Amazon Prime’s Totally Killer, there’s this genre of slasher comedies that now all feel the same and Heart Eyes is in the same group. It’s partially because it’s the same people working on the majority of these films, but none of them capture the same goofy magic that Happy Death Day or Freaky did. The more these types of slashers are released the more it seems like Freaky was entertaining because of Vince Vaughn’s performance rather than the actual script of the film.

Heart Eyes is a horror film that knows it’s dumb and completely plays into it. After the film’s opening, the film spends the next thirty minutes diving in to Ally’s drama at work and her possible chemistry with Jay. There’s some great imagery in the film especially with the sequence on the carousel and the drive-in. But every kill and every promising endeavor results in this sequence of stupidity that mostly doesn’t work.

Ally and Jay take refuge in an unlocked van at the drive-in. They attempt to have a serious conversation while a stoned-out couple has loud sex in the back. The sex scene culminates with a kill sequence that Jason Voorhees would approve of. Then there’s a beheading in the film that is so wonderfully slimy, goopy, and dripping with exceptional practical effects.

It’s so odd because Heart Eyes feels like a hornier version of Friday the 13th without any gratuitous nudity, which is one of the elements that made horror films from the 80s so memorable. Apart from romantic couples being the main target of the killer in Heart Eyes, the main tagline is that everyone has a kink or a fetish. But nothing in Heart Eyes is that kinky or revealing apart from the kills, which are legitimately the only redeeming aspect of the film.

R-rated movies and mainstream horror in general have shifted away from graphic sex scenes and nudity in recent years, and there are several reasons for that. But it seems unusual to have a film take place on what is considered the most romantic holiday of the year for most and be R-rated and not even tease something sensual apart from loud dirty talk.

Heart Eyes is a clumsy horror film that is so dumb that it stumbles into accidental amusement from time to time. Some inventive kills are nearly ruined by a half-ass plot that points out how convoluted it is every chance it gets and a killer reveal that’s about as satisfying as waking up at the bottom of a greasy flesh pile at an orgy you didn’t consent to.

With the eponymous killer having had some success in previous years despatching nauseatingly loved-up couples on Valentine’s Day in quite spectacular fashion, the city is nervously gearing up for this year’s event. It’s especially nerve-wracking for “Ally” (Olivia Holt) who has been involved in a marketing campaign at work that she just knows her boss is going to loathe! Add to this nervousness a rather Laurel and Hardy style of start to her day in the coffee shop with an handsome stranger and, well, “Ally” is ready for a bad day. Imagine her chagrin, then, when boss “Crystal” (Michaela Watkins) introduces the man she’s brought in to salvage things. Yep, it’s no less than “Jay” (Mason Gooding) with whom she had her earlier altercation. He’s smart, suave and she thinks he wants her job… Meantime, the media are in full panic mode after it discovers that the killer has found a delicious new use for a wine press! “Jay” thinks that a dinner might break the ice between the pair, but all that does it get them onto the radar of the dastardly assassin who promptly turns his attention on them. Despite their repeated protestations that they barely know each other, they appear to be doomed! I really quite enjoyed this, not least because it doesn’t try to take itself at all seriously and at times reminded me of an episode of “Scooby Do” morphed into “Halloween”. There’s a decent amount of sarcasm contained in the script, a soupçon of chemistry between the two leads and a denouement that just yells sequel at you in a not very scary voice! I don’t know if it is supposed to be a spoof, per se, but there are some scenes in a drive-in cinema that do suggest it’s tongue is in it’s cheek before she finds an ingenious new use for a recyclable drinks straw. It’s meant to be a bit of a fun poke at the ridiculously cheesy nature of Valentine’s Day and if you don’t guess who is doing what after half an hour, then go to the bottom of the class!