Heart Eyes review
Heart Eyes has enough to please both romcom and slasher fans…even if the two never quite mesh perfectly together.
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Heart Eyes Review
Valentine’s Day and slasher movies have always been a strangely comfortable pairing. My Bloody Valentine is a classic…a newer generation holds its surprisingly decent remake in oddly high esteem. And, of course, there is Valentine. An objectively bad movie that gained a cult following for reasons that will never make sense. Even accounting for the viewers that were the right age for Valentine to be their first slasher movie…I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. Heart Eyes embraces the Valentine’s Day holiday for all that it can. It also attempts something those movies never thought of. Heart Eyes is as much a romantic comedy as it is a slasher movie.
The resulting effort is full of positives and negatives. While Valentine’s Day may be a fit for the slasher genre…romcoms maybe not so much. Those genres struggle to mix in Heart Eyes. The effective romcom elements happen at their own pace…separate from the slasher scenes. There are a few good laughs when the masked killer interrupts the burgeoning romance at the center of the story…but Heart Eyes never quite marries the two in a way that elevates both. At least, it hardly ever does. There is a moment near the end of the film where it feels like the experiment is going to pay off. Unfortunately, that’s when Heart Eyes truly fails to figure out what kind of movie it wants to be.
That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty to enjoy here. As both a romcom and a slasher. Just…hardly ever at the same time.
A masked killer with a very specific motive heads to Seattle to murder couples on Valentine’s Day. He’s previously dispatched people in Boston and Philadelphia…and has gained a nationwide reputation. While couples are the endgame…plenty of collateral damage find themselves on the wrong end of cupid’s arrow or whatever else is handy along the way. After witnessing an unexpected and not quite as intended kiss between Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) …he sets his killer sights on them.
Ally and Jay’s romantic comedy is caught in the crossfire of the Heart Eyes Killer’s slasher story. All the beats of a traditional romcom are present. From a meet cute at a coffee shop to the will they won’t they to a desperate run to the airport to reveal true feelings. Jay is hopeless romantic. Ally has been burned too harshly to believe in love. The setup and execution of a likable romantic comedy are all in place…with the added threat of death at every turn.
The expected beats of a slasher film are here as well. A gory opening, violent kills, chase scenes, mistaken identity…you know the drill by now. Heart Eyes does a good job with the slasher fun…with the caveat that the pacing of the romcom throws the timing off a notable amount. It does a good job with the romantic comedy elements as well. This aspect is enhanced by the excitement of murders and chase scenes. It seems in this experiment…romantic comedies can benefit from violence a lot more than a slasher movie benefits from romcom characters and tropes. Honestly, that makes complete sense. We probably could have predicted that.
Heart Eyes runs into its biggest issue in the third act. The story builds up a romantic comedy assisted by slasher elements. The third act flirts with a satisfying payoff to the formula…before doubling back on its slasher aspects and then re-doubling back to try and make the romcom parts land a second time. It’s a strange finale that misses out on what’s worked best up to that point.
What works best in Heart Eyes is the attempt to layer two absurd things on top of one another. Slasher movies are silly. Romantic comedies are too. Moments where Ally and Jay are unsure of what’s going on between them being interrupted by a serial killer are fun. Trying to reason with the masked man that they aren’t even a couple…that’s fun too. Heart Eyes can be viewed as a unique first date between two stock romcom characters. That’s certainly how it’s seen at its most interesting. The final act of the story seems to know it…but is overwhelmed by a sense of duty to the slasher fans in attendance. The result is a movie that feels a few scenes too long.
On the other hand, it’s mostly entertaining to watch. Mason Gooding, one of the best parts of the recent Scream films, is his usual likable, charming self here. Olivia Holt pulls off both the final girl character and unlucky in love romcom lead well. The killer is relentless in his pursuit of murder and is appropriately violent. There’s even a whodunnit aspect for fans of that…although the culmination of that arc falls under the “this movie should have ended before this” bucket. Heart Eyes had a perfect resolution to its whodunnit…but ends up pushing its chips deep into the slasher half of the story to the detriment of the overall package.
Scare Value
Likable leads star in a decent romantic comedy continuously interrupted by a pretty good slasher movie. There’s enough of each to please fans of either…but Heart Eyes is unlikely to create a lasting fusion of the two. I am curious which side’s fans appreciate the addition of the other genre more. It will likely be a perfect holiday treat to the people at the center of that Venn diagram. They make imperfect bedfellows…but there are moments that are elevated by being in each other’s presence.
3/5
Heart Eyes Link
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