‘Heart Eyes’ Review
Stars: Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Gigi Zumbado, Michaela Watkins, Jordana Brewster, Devon Sawa | Written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, Michael Kennedy | Directed by Josh Ruben
Directed by Josh Ruben, Heart Eyes is a darkly comic Valentines-themed slasher with considerable franchise potential. To that end, it’s co-scripted by some of the writers behind the likes of Freaky and Happy Death Day 2U, so the filmmakers have a degree of cachet, slasher-wise.
Rising star Olivia Holt (Cloak & Dagger) plays Seattle ad campaign designer Ally McCabe, who’s forced to work alongside high-flying rival Jay Simmonds (Mason Gooding) after a Valentine’s-themed work disaster. Unfortunately, their work-related proximity puts them squarely in the sights of the Heart Eyes Killer, a murderer with a heart eyes mask who targets couples every Valentine’s Day.
Despite screaming “WE’RE NOT TOGETHER!” at the killer on several occasions (a great running joke), Ally and Jay are relentlessly pursued by the psycho, which of course only brings them closer together and makes them more of a target. Along the way, they receive nominal help from police detectives Hobbs and Shaw (Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster), but the Heart Eyes killer is especially resourceful and even manages to attack them in the police station, proving that nowhere is safe.
The balance between horror and comedy is not always easy to strike, but Ruben gets it exactly right here, delivering some big laughs, but also making the kills sufficiently gruesome and injecting a decent amount of suspense and tension. The screenplay is particularly savvy in that regard – the dialogue is frequently very funny (“I didn’t know murder was a love language”), and there are a number of amusing romcom-savvy references, not least Ally’s wisecracking best friend Monica (Gigi Zumbado, under-used, but good value) getting away with the line, “Some kind of wonderful, crazy, stupid love, actually.”
One especially clever decision has the Heart Eyes Killer (or HEK, for short) already established in popular culture, thanks to previous Valentine’s killing sprees. That, in turn, means that the distinctive heart eyes masks are widely available in shops, allowing for numerous fake-outs, but crucially, it also means that anybody could take up the mantle in future, if the franchise takes off.
Ruben has a good command of pace, and ensures things keep moving for the brisk 97-minute running time. He also stages a handful of effective set pieces, including a tongue-in-cheek homage of sorts to Silence of the Lambs, where the heart eyes on the killer’s mask light up red and it turns out they are infra-red glasses.
The performances are excellent – Holt and Gooding have palpable chemistry together, and there’s strong support from both Brewster and Sawa (although they kind of bungle the Hobbs & Shaw joke). There’s also a fun comic turn from The always reliable Michaela Watkins, as Ally’s boss, though like Zumbado, she is criminally under-used.
In short, Heart Eyes is a lot more fun than it has any real right to be, thanks to a witty script that expertly nails the horror-comedy balance and delivers thrills and laughs in equal measure. Here’s hoping it becomes the franchise that the filmmakers are clearly hoping for because there’s a lot of potential here.
**** 4/5
Heart Eyes is in cinemas now.
