by Anthony O'Connor

Year:  2025

Director:  Josh Ruben

Rated:  MA

Release:  13 February 2025

Distributor: Paramount

Running time: 97 minutes

Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Gigi Zumbado, Michaela Watkins, Devon Sawa, Jordana Brewster

Intro:
Heart Eyes is fun. Full of knowing winks and well-executed scares ...

The humble slasher movie has been going through a bit of a renewal in recent years, with various Scream sequels, the Halloween reboot trilogy, and the Terrifier movies.

Certainly, these slasher flicks aren’t the grimy sleaze fests from the ‘80s, nor the puckish self-aware deconstructions of the ‘90s and early 2000s, but often cross-genre re-imaginings.

Take the Happy Death Day movies, which are basically Groundhog Day meets Scream. Or Freaky which was originally pitched as “Freaky Friday the 13th” with a teen swapping bodies with a hulking Jason Voorhees-esque serial killer.

This genre mash-up trend continues with Heart Eyes that boldly asks “What if a slasher movie… but also a rom-com?”

Heart Eyes is the story of love cynic Ally (Olivia Holt), whose advertising campaign gets her cancelled because of its unfortunate timing with the latest murders by notorious couple-slaughtering serial killer, Heart Eyes (because of his heart-eyed mask). Her company goes into damage control mode and hires Jay Simmons (Mason Gooding) to fix the campaign, which is double galling for Ally because she had an earlier meet cute with Jay and is it just us or do we think these crazy, mismatched kids might end up together? Of course, there’s a very big fly in the ointment in the form of Heart Eyes, who has decided his latest victims will be Ally and Jay.

Heart Eyes comes with a lot of charm. Directed by Josh Ruben (Scare Me, Werewolves Within) and co-written by Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Freaky), there’s a wry, knowing sense of humour bubbling underneath both the rom-com tropes and surprisingly vicious horror moments. It also helps that Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding are both delightful in their respective roles, and are those rare slasher movie characters who you’d actually prefer not to die horribly.

The direction is slick and fast-paced and the script moves along at a pleasing clip, for the most part. There are issues with the third act, however, when the movie decides it wants a big twisty reveal that just doesn’t quite work. Heart Eyes is best when it does its own thing. When it decides to ape other slasher classics like Scream? Less so.

Still, Heart Eyes is fun. Full of knowing winks and well-executed scares, benefiting from a supporting cast that includes Devon Sawa (Final Destination) and Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious series) and containing well executed thrills and appealing romance. Couples on Valentine’s Day might actually have a flick that they can both enjoy!

More so than The Human Centipede or Salò, anyway.