Heart Eyes

The nation cowers in fear, as every Valentine's Day a masked maniac with glowing red eyes shows up in a random city to slaughter unsuspecting couples. But when an ad executive and her colleague are mistaken for a couple, becoming the killer's next target, they must fight to not just survive the night, but maybe even... find love.

For the past few years, a serial killer known as "Heart Eyes" has moved from different cities in the United States every Valentine's Day, killing multiple couples. This year, Heart Eyes has choosen Seattle and has so far murdered two couples on Valentine's dates, one at a winery and another at a spa.

Meanwhile, Ally McCabe is ad executive for a jewelry company who has recently broken up with her boyfriend, and has sworn off romance. But when her new ad campaign involving doomed couples is seen as offensive in light of the Heart Eyes murders, Ally's boss orders her to work with advertising consultant Jay Simmons, a handsome and charming man who Ally had also recently had a meet-cute with at a coffee shop earlier that very day.

Jay suggests they have dinner that night to gain inspiration and brainstorm ideas, which Ally rejects because she's currently wallowing in a post-breakup world, but Monica, her sassy best friend, pushes her to go, leading to a fun outfit montage!

Ally and Jay's work-date at the fancy restaurant grows badly, mostly because Ally currently has no time for stupid boys and their stupid boy bullshit. Offended, Jay leaves their admittedly more than a little inappropriate work dinner, and realizing that she'll be fired if she can't salvage this ad campaign, Ally chases after Jay. She manages to catch him just as they run into her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. Ally immediately launches into a panicked ruse that Jay is her date, and that she is so happy with him, and that she has moved on and barely even remembers her ex, and finally, to really sell the whole thing, she then very performatively lunges at Jay's face in a passionate kiss. But wait, as their lips part... could there be a real connection between the two of them?

From a distance, Heart Eyes watches, and chooses their next target.

Jay and Ally reconcile, work through the awkwardness, and take a cab to Ally's apartment in the hope of working on the campaign, but then Ally realizes that she forgot her keys, and their meet-cute continues. Jay helps her break in, cutting his hand in the process, and Ally tends to his wound in her bedroom, the two sharing heartfelt secrets and beginning to bond, only for Ally to realize that she has left her rather meaty dildo out on her nightstand. Panicking, hoping that Jay hasn't yet noticed her thick-ass plastic pal a'jiggling and a'juddering over on her nightstand like a bobble head doll in an earthquake, she tries to very casually hide the big purple dong behind her back, and then, also very casually, hide it in her closet...

Heart Eyes attacks.

Ally's thrown dildo barely even slows the monster down.

After that, there's an extended sequence of running and screaming and random bystanders getting killed in often bloody, and sometimes funny ways, and finally the cops show up, and of course, they only make things worse, because that's what cops do. They arrest Jay, believing him to be Heart Eyes.

There's a Fast the Furious "joke" during all of this stuff that made me wonder if people in the theatres actually laughed at it, and why. Because it's not so much a joke, but just a random-ass reference. And there's no punchline either. They're just saying words that some people might remember from a different movie, and it's not delivered in an arch way, nor does it include any commentary. It doesn't even seem connected to the film either... It's just words said out loud in the same order that they're said somewhere else, in a way like we're supposed to laugh at it, and I don't know why. I really wish it had been cut. It's just so bland and mediocre and pointless and it clearly thinks that it's funny and I seriously don't understand. It offends me. I hate it. I almost stopped the film and walked away.

Anyway...

At the station, the cops are dumb and useless and soon enough, dying in great numbers as the power is shut off, and Heart Eyes shows up. His glowing heart eyes in his mask look pretty awesome. Eventually, Ally and Jay escape the police station and end up in a drive-in movie theater, which is like an All You Can Eat Buffet for a serial killer who specifically targets lovers, so there's a lot more bodies.

But in the end, Ally and Jay take down Heart Eyes, killing him, and when they unmask him, he is revealed to be... just some dude. The carnage over, everyone breathes a sigh of relief and heads home... Oh crap, there's still like 20 minutes left in this film. But how? Heart Eyes is dead, what else could possibly happen?

Unless...

A combination Valentine’s Day rom-com and slasher-horror movie, my wife dubbed this film "just the right amount of scary" which means it's not actually scary at all. It's gory, sure, but not scary. I think there's maybe two jump-scares, and that's the cheapest, most basic scare a horror movie can do. Other than that, it's just some blood and splatter, and all of that is either implied or cartoonish. Also, for a Valentine's Day horror film about a killer who targets lovers? No nudity. Plenty of blood. Plenty of red meat. Not even a hint of skin. Ally's big rubber cock is the most you get. I feel like these basically PG-13-level sexless splatter-fest horror films might say something about America that is pretty shitty.

Anyway...

Other than that, Heart Eyes is a nicely self-aware little film. It pokes fun at the typical rom-com cliches, all while doing a good job of working them into the gory tropes of your typical slaher flick. But despite being self-aware, it still just hits all the expected beats in all the expected ways, except for two genres, instead of one. Really, once you're past the pretty clever twist of how our characters get involved, it quickly becomes apparent that, while kinda fun, Heart Eyes isn't actually meant to be a parody of either genre, it's just the usual notes of both mixed together. It's kind of like the cinematic version of rap-metal, just a pleasing blending of styles, offering nothing more. 

That doesn't mean it's bad, it's more... not really great. It's fine.

Still, like I said earlier, the Killer looks great. The mask alone is basically a guarantee that this will become a franchise. Also, the gore is inventive and splashy, so it definitely delivers on that end. And the cast is great too, so despite it doing all the expected Rom-Com things, at least it's charming about it. I also liked the mini-crossbow as the killer's weapon of choice. It's kind of an anti-cupid thing, maybe, not quite, but kinda. An interesting choice nonetheless.

That said, I did feel like the opening was a little too try-hard in it's figurative and literal influencer skewering. I'm not saying that it wasn't accurate or anything, just that it felt like low hanging fruit. Too easy and too expected.

Which is basically the film's biggest issue.

On top of all that, while I'll allow that you could fairly say that the end reveal wasn't really guessable, I think it's also fair to say that the reason it's not guessable is not because it's clever, and more because it was so deliberately random and from out-of-left-field. Like, yeah, I didn't quite see it coming, but I'm still not impressed, and if we're being honest here, the explanation only makes sense if you don't think about it too much.

So, while neither all that well-written, nor all that clever, Heart Eyes is still kind of fun. The leads are great together too, so I'd recommend checking it out if you like these kinds of films and have some extra time. It's a fun popcorn flick with "just the right amount of scary." And while I imagine the inevitable sequel will be the definition of diminishing returns, I'll still check it out eventually.