Heart Eyes Review

“Your day f*cking sucks!” – Ally (speaking to a statue of St Valentine)

I can’t disagree with her sentiment. Maybe I’m getting cynical with age, but I’ve always considered Valentine’s to be the cheesiest holiday on the calendar. Or maybe it’s because the shops around where I live have a tendency to put the Valentine’s crap out on their shelves on Boxing Day.

Okay, rant over, there’s one thing I like about Valentine’s and that is the fact it’s being celebrated with some pretty good genre films beginning with My Bloody Valentine (1980), its remake (2009), Valentine (2001). When you consider the release of Thanksgiving (2023) and the fact that the seventh film in the Scream trilogy will be released next year, it’s undeniable that the holiday themed slasher film is still at the cutting edge of horror cinema (all puns intended).

This one comes with a pretty good pedigree, co-written by Christopher Landon whose previous credits include Freaky (2020) and Happy Death Day 2U (2019).

The Heart Eyes Killer (HEK) has been active around Valentine’s for a few years, though never in the same place. He moves elusively from city to city nobody knows where he’ll strike next, and he targets couples. He got the name by wearing a grotesque mask, made seemingly from leather, with two red glowing eyes in the shape of hearts. As far as disturbing, emotionless blank masks are concerned, it’s up there with the ones worn by Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.

The film opens with HEK gatecrashing a perfectly staged marriage proposal at a winery and another couple meet a grisly end in a spa early on Feb. 14 on the outskirts of Seattle. In Seattle, ad designer Ally McCabe (Olivia Holt) is not having a good day. She’s very recently single, and her proposed ad campaign based on doomed couples is ridiculed. On the verge of losing her job, she’s reluctantly teamed with Jay Simmons (Mason Gooding – a familiar face from the most recent Scream films). They only have a day to come up with a pitch that will save her career, so Jay suggests they brainstorm over dinner – which is when they’re mistaken for a couple and targeted by Heart Eyes who keeps showing up causing general havoc and mayhem. The killings are being investigated by a couple of detectives, Hobbs (Devon Sawa) and Shaw (Jordana Brewster) who suspect Jay of being the killer.

Okay, that’s a deliberately vague synopsis because the film has a fair few twists to it that I don’t want to spoil here. It’s a film that’s fun to watch. There are times where the budding romance seems to be the underlying theme, before the film takes a darkly comical turn, ending up a full-blown slasher gorefest, hitting all its marks. Yes, it IS a horror movie, but it’s a fun horror movie, much like the Scream films are, along with Freaky, which I mentioned earlier. In fact, it takes a lot from Scream in its set up and structure – and that’s not a bad thing. If you’re going to take inspiration, then take it from the best.

I’m kind of hoping there’ll be more of these, never say die – right?

Rob Rating = 7