Wednesday, February 05, 2025

Heart Eyes: Happy Valentine’s Day

The good news is restaurants should be much more affordable this Valantine’s. The bad news is a serial killer has been killing couples on Cupid’s day for the last few years. Conspicuous PDAs can be fatal, as well as causing nausea in others. Ally and her new work colleague Jay are absolutely, positively not a couple, but they look good together, so they still attract the killer’s attention in Josh Ruben’s Heart Eyes, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Ally just released a bizarre ad campaign featuring famous dead lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, that would be considered grotesque even if the so-called Heart Eyes Killer (H.E.K.) weren’t terrorizing romantic couples. He is definitely still active, as we see during the
Scream-like prologue. Many of his targets are obnoxious Instagram-driven Millennial jerkweeds, but HEK willingly slashes through any innocent working stiff who get in the way.

Jay is the supposed marketing wizard brought into clean up Ally’s mess. They are natural rivals, but there is also an undercurrent of attraction, making their dinner meeting, on Valentine’s Day—the boss will love his expense report—even more awkward. That also means he goes with it, when she kisses him for her ex’s benefit. Of course, you know who else sees that smooch and starts chasing the not-lovers through the city.

Arguably,
Heart Eyes is a better Scream movie than the later Scream movies that perversely shifted away from Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers. The screenplay (credited to Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy) is slyly droll in a knowing but not excessively ironic way. There is a lot of humor, but Ruben and the screenwriters are just as concerned with the start-and-stop development of the hunted non-couple’s romance.

Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding have terrific romantic and comedic chemistry together as Ally and Jay. Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster are also perfectly matched as the two lead detectives, Hobbs and Shaw—yes, its an in-joke, which the cops themselves don’t get.

The balance between humor and gore is tricky, but Ruben gets it right this time. He also benefits from some nice comedic support delivered by Gigi Zumbado as Ally’s acerbic bestie, Monica. The classic film screening in the background also feels like a nostalgic nod to old school slashers like
Halloween (which featured The Thing from Another World on TV). Granted, His Girl Friday is not super romantic, but it is a witty film and perhaps most importantly, it fell into the public domain.

Throughout it all, HEK lives up to the nastiest of slasher traditions, so fans will leave satisfied and satiated. Ruben’s films have steadily improved.
Werewolves Within was dramatically better than Scare Me, while Heart Eyes is even more consistently funny—and bloodier. Highly recommended for genre fans, it opens in theaters nationwide Friday (2/7).