Heart Eyes (2025) is
the cheesy romance/gory slasher mashup you didn’t know you needed. Equal parts
shocking splatter and warm fuzzies (with a dash of knee-jerk humor thrown in
for good measure,) it’s a wild ride and just plain fun.
The movie starts with an Insta-worthy staged proposal
that makes you kinda glad all parties involved quickly get spectacularly (and
hilariously) murdered, then moves on to the kind of cringeworthy meet-cute that
is the backbone of every Hallmark movie. If you’re not thinking, ‘What the fuck
am I watching?’ at this point, you might be watching the wrong movie.
Olivia Holt‘s Ally McCabe is off love after a nasty
breakup. Too bad her job is to create a romantic commercial for perfume. Which
she does. Terribly. So terribly it gets her cancelled online and nearly
costs her job.
Enter Mason Gooding‘s Jay Simmonds, who’s tasked with
helping her revamp the (wildly inappropriate) commercial she created.
Oh, and also the mystery hunk she butted heads with
(literally) at the coffee shop earlier that day.
Whoops.
After some confusion over whether their business
dinner – which just so happens to fall on Valentine’s Day – is actually a
business dinner, Ally and Jay unexpectedly lock lips when Ally’s ex shows up
with his new girlfriend. Ally ropes Jay into pretending to be her new
boyfriend and lays one on him.
Like ya do.
Great idea if you’re trying to trick your ex into
thinking you’re over him when you’re obviously not.
Terrible idea if a serial killer who
only targets couples happens to be watching from the shadows.
Which they are.
Heart Eyes is your typical relentless masked killer.
(And the mask is pretty freaking cool, to be fair. A little reminiscent of the killer in
My Bloody Valentine.) Once he sets his glowing eyes on Ally and Jay, a
cat and mouse game with deadly consequences is unavoidable.
And fun. I mentioned how fun this movie is,
right?
If you’re after a horror movie that’s easy to watch,
without any deeper meanings, or heavy moralizing, Heart Eyes is exactly what
you’re looking for. There’s so much I love about this film, from the
cinematography, which is well done, to the humor and the relationship between
Ally and Jay, which is actually pretty darn sweet (you know… for a movie where
pretty much everyone else dies.)
But I can’t talk about all the things I do like about Heart
Eyes without mentioning the one thing I don’t like about it.
Too many movies these days try to be clever about revealing
the baddie and ruin it.
Let’s call it the Game of Thrones Effect.
Like you get some kind of bonus points if no one
guesses what happens? Well… no. Yeah, okay, the movies I enjoy best are the
ones that surprise me. But the surprise reveal can’t come at the expense of
character/plot development.
Or, you know, fucking common sense.
(Are you listening, Benioff and Weis?)
Sadly, that’s the exact hurdle Heart Eyes fell
on.
When they unmask the killer, we all went, “Who is that?”
Including the MCs. If the killer doesn’t play any part in the rest of the movie
– if they’re never even mentioned – why. Are. They. In. It? For the
“OMG, I didn’t think it would be some rando!” Not good enough.
So, when they went ahead and threw another two killers
in for good measure, it was even worse. It wasn’t just reaching, it was
desperate. And it spoiled what had been, until then, an excellent movie.
Don’t get me wrong, I still recommend Heart Eyes.
It really is a fun movie. Just don’t put too much on the big reveal or you’ll
be disappointed. Like I was.
Overall, Heart Eyes is a great movie for casual
horror fans, or to watch with friends who aren’t really into horror. It spans
genres, appealing to all kinds of viewers. Unfortunately, hardcore horror fans
will find themselves frustrated with the so-called reveal.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4/5)
