We can't just make theatrical romantic comedies anymore. They have to be either post-modern parodies (Isn't It Romantic?), John Wick-style action movies (The Fall Guy), or, in the case of Heart Eyes, slasher films. There's nothing wrong with or even new about a genre mash-up, However, the dearth of standard rom-coms in movie theaters makes this trend a bit peculiar. It’s like there’s an industry-wide trepidation at delivering "just" Notting Hill 2.0. Hitting all the standard rom-com narrative beats is acceptable, just make sure there are also some Ryan Gosling quips or gruesome murders in between.
It's a little bit like Disney trying to make a film like Wish with visuals reminiscent of hand-drawn animation. If you're going through so much trouble to evoke the days of CAPS and Xerox animation, why not just do hand-drawn animation? Similarly, if your movie is just doing all the hallmarks of a rom-com, why not just make a rom-com?
Wider film industry ramblings aside, Heart Eyes screenwriters Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon (him again!), and Michael Kennedy are clearly determined to make Heart Eyes work as a rom-com that just so happens to contain stabbings, gore, and people's innards hitting the ground. The title refers to a murderer known as The Heart Eyes Killer. Starting in February 2023, this vicious figure travels from one American city to the next. His plan? Slaughtering couples on Valentine's Day. Now, it's 2025 and it's Seattle's turn for a bloodbath.
That’s a problem because Seattle resident Ally (Olivia Holt) already has enough problems on her plate. She's struggling to get over her ex-boyfriend, after all. Plus, her work as a promotional campaign manager at a diamond company has garnered extreme controversy. A cute uber-romantic guy, Jay (Mason Gooding), she ran into at a coffee shop and also happens to have been hired to replace her at work. Naturally, the upbeat Jay and cynical Ally do NOT get along at first. Just as some sparks begin to fly between the duo, though, The Heart Eyes Killer begins to target the pair. Romance may not be dead, but by the end of this night, soooo many couples will be.
Heart Eyes delivers its fair share of really amusing gags. Happily, director Josh Ruben isn’t afraid to execute jokes that take advantage of a big-screen canvas. A great example of this comes after Detective Hobbs (Devon Sawa) storms out of an interrogation. Slamming the door behind him, Hobbs remains visible only through a vision panel, lingering angrily on the left side of the frame. His stewing in the corner of a shot is just such a funny visual.
Also humorous is Ally slowly pulling an American flag up from the bottom of the frame to defend herself in a tense moment. Some of the more gruesome deaths, like a cameraperson getting stabbed with a machete plunged through his camera lens, are also darkly hysterical. Some of the gnarliest demises may inspire you to say “I can’t believe this story you’re telling me, it’s macabre”. However, that’s the name of the slasher movie game.
Still, even with these high points, I couldn’t shake that Murphy, Landon, and Kennedy’s overall comedic approach just misses the mark. There are just too many jokes diluted by excessive dialogue. Most egregiously is an initially perfectly acceptable gag where Ally saves Jay’s life by firing a gun at The Heart Eyes Killer. Despite being in close range, her multitude of shots misses this psychopath. That alone works well as a humorous exaggeration of how people in slasher movies never know how to aim a gun. Alas, once they're alone again, Jay observes “You’re a terrible shot, by the way”. It's the verbal equivalent of punching you in the ribs to ensure a joke landed.
More basic gags like Detective Shaw (Jordana Brewster) excitingly checking her dating app updates while navigating a grisly crime scene or the umpteenth modern pop culture reference to Hobbs & Shaw just fall flat. Straining and mugging to get a laugh is where things fall apart. Heart Eyes is much more entertaining juxtaposing violent slasher movie antics with deeply committed reprisals of rom-com hallmarks. Going from a winery bloodbath to, less than 20 minutes later, a cynicism-free fashion montage? That’s the good stuff! Ditto Jay and Ally sharing a bonding moment while pulling a tire iron out of a dead man’s mouth. Wackier dialogue calling attention to “plot holes” or odd pieces of character behavior, not so much.
It's also a shame Ruben and cinematographer Stephen Murphy don't utilize the visual possibilities of colliding rom-coms and slasher cinema more. An early scene with Ally at a crowded work meeting has tons of colors and brightly decorated walls. This workspace could 100% exist in The Devil Wears Prada or Crazy Rich Asians. Unfortunately, it sets up expectations for a barrage of similarly luscious visuals that go unfulfilled. The rest of the runtime fills your eyeballs with standard nighttime slasher movie chase scenes. They really don’t evoke even warped rom-com imagery at all.
On the other hand, the Heart Eyes script does come up with enjoyably specific backdrops for that titular maniac to enact grisly mayhem. An abandoned botanical garden, a winery, and a drive-in movie theater are the kinds of spaces where love typically blossoms. Here, they’re contorted into solid playgrounds for slasher cinema chaos. The drive-in theater is an especially inspired place for Scream-esque sequences and not just because it means snippets of His Girl Friday fill up the screen…though that certainly doesn’t hurt.
Heart Eyes also has the decency to give its main baddie a memorable-looking outfit. The Heart Eyes Killer stalks his prey while wearing a mask made from a texture resembling a burlap sack. Already that’s a fun departure from typical slasher movie masks seen in Scream, the original Halloween, or Happy Death Day that look so polished it’s like they got plucked off a store shelf. However, the contrast between that ramshackle surface and those electronic glistening heart-shaped eyes (hence his name) is a further clever touch. Also fun is how The Heart Eyes Killer constantly has an array of stabbing tools under his trench coat. Jason and Ghostface always have one trusty weapon by their side. The Heart Eyes Killer, meanwhile, just has an endless supply of tools to butcher people.
The fact that Heart Eyes never comments on that dissonance-fueled mask or this slaughterer’s bottomless arsenal of weapons speaks to what this movie does best. Eschewing overt self-awareness serves this production well. Ruben’s obvious fondness for both slashers and rom-coms thrives whenever Heart Eyes just lives in the moment. Dialogue trying too hard to wink at the audience, though, is where this genre mixture loses its way. Heart Eyes leaves potential on the table, but it still slices and dices up some diverting entertainment.