By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding and Gigi Zumbado
Directed by Josh Ruben
Written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy
Screen Gems/Sony
The presence of WEREWOLVES WITHIN director Josh Ruben and FREAKY scripters Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy as key creatives on HEART EYES indicates that this slasher film will have a heavy dose of satire mixed in. But the prevailing tone combined with the bloodshed is actually that of a Valentine’s Day romantic comedy. As opposed to MY BLOODY VALENTINE, which employed the trappings but not the spirit of the holiday, love is in the air in HEART EYES, which divides its time equally between the customs of its conjoined genres while pulling a few nifty twists on them.
That begins in the very first scene, a comically exaggerated proposal tableau that you just know will be violently interrupted, though the filmmakers throw in a few unexpected beats. We’re then introduced to our heroine, young ad exec Ally (the instantly sympathetic Olivia Holt), who is all the usual travails of romcom protagonists wrapped up in one: She’s got job problems, is still reeling from a recent breakup, has given up on love and has an outspoken best friend, Monica (Gigi Zumbado), egging her on to get more out of life. Part of one issue might be the solution to another: After her ill-advisedly doomy campaign for Crystal Cane Jewelry bombs with the public and threatens to get her fired, her boss (Michaela Watkins) brings in some new blood to save the company’s image: handsome Jay (Mason Gooding), with whom Ally has already had a meet-cute in a coffee shop.
Romantic comedies are not about the destination–we know the central girl and guy will get together in the end–but about the journey, the hurdles they’ll have to overcome to get together. The key obstacle for Ally and Jay’s happiness is where the horror part comes in: The Heart Eyes Killer, or “HEK” as the news media calls him, has come to their hometown of Seattle for his latest Valentine’s Day rampage after killing sprees the two previous years in Boston and Philadelphia. He’s a hulking madman in the Jason Voorhees mold, with thumping footsteps and a striking full-head mask that physicalizes the emoji that gives him his name, wielding vicious arrows (à la Cupid) along with the requisite hunting knife and machete.
Heart Eyes’ m.o. is to murder couples, and he selects Ally and Jay as his principal targets after witnessing them kiss to psych out Ally’s ex-boyfriend. (There’s a joke there about romcom conventions: Like any audience, the killer knows these two are made for each other before they do.) And since we know these potential lovers will get together in the end, that means we also know they’ll live long enough to do so, and thus HEART EYES isn’t big on will-they-survive? tension. What it does have is the combination of sparky, snarky dialogue and brutal kills that marked the SCREAM franchise–whose recent relaunch was backed by HEART EYES producer Spyglass Pictures, with Gooding as a regular. Some of those lines are quite funny, and the murders are done up with plenty of impactful gore effects (by Stef Knight) and visceral sound effects.
HEART EYES doesn’t exactly skewer the romcom genre; it simply uses the form, with all the expected trappings (from a clothes-shopping montage to a race to the airport) as a playground for its maniac to stalk around in. It wouldn’t work without the right leads, and with the endearing Holt and very likable Gooding front and center, it has plenty of charm in the sections between murders. Zumbado brings bursts of fresh energy to her own traditional character, and early-21st-century stalwarts Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster add amusing moments as investigating detectives Zeke Hobbs and Jeanine Shaw–and yes, someone makes the inevitable joke.
The sequence in their police station, with Jay rather improbably accused of being the killer (this only makes a little more sense after the movie’s convoluted conclusion), goes on a little too long. And while it’s appropriate for Heart Eyes to terrorize a drive-in showing the classic screwball romance HIS GIRL FRIDAY (masked slashers’ favorite day, of course), one has to wonder how many people would attend such a venue in February in Seattle. Put aside quibbles like this, and HEART EYES will satisfy as a fine date movie or late-night streaming-and-chill flick for horror fans.
