Heart Eyes – REVIEW

Still from Heart Eyes


I’m sort of stunned by the response to this one. I’m not entirely sure where this came from, but Heart Eyes has really become the big discussion of January/February horror movies. Granted, there haven't been a lot of movies or shows (or really anything) that’s come out this year so far, but hey, we’ve got something to talk about now. Why I think this is happening is because of Eli Roth, who’s only really made one good movie, and that’s Thanksgiving. It’s an absolutely ridiculous movie, framing a slasher/murder mystery around the Thanksgiving/Black Friday holiday, but unlike Roth’s other horror movies, it leans much more into how silly the premise of a serial killer dressing up like a pilgrim and cooking one of his victims like a turkey is. That’s silly, and it knows it. Heart Eyes doesn’t lean into how goofy this idea is, which follows the “Heart Eyes Killer,” a methodical serial killer that’s been killing couples on Valentine’s Day in different cities for the past two years. His gaze is set on Seattle now, but the main couple he targets aren’t a couple at all: they’re just co-workers who kissed once. What really irked me about Heart Eyes is that this is barely a slasher. It just feels like a normal rom-com most of the time, but then HEK (as newsreels in the movie dub him) shows up. There’s nothing wrong with being a normal rom-com, but nearly everything that isn’t a horror movie is just really bland. It’s like Sony already had a script for a nice rom-com they needed to put into production, even if it’s on the generic side. They needed an extra hook, so they threw in Ghostface, and neither side ever came together. Another problem is the two leads, Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding. I’ve liked them in the other projects I’ve seen them in, especially Gooding, who I thought was one of the best parts of the last couple Scream movies. They don’t have any sort of chemistry here, and the “will they/won’t they” aspects of the movie are touched upon but barely utilized. Even the twist of who ends up under that hilarious mask, which does look like the heart eyes emoji, comes out of nowhere and is almost nonsensical. Again, I’m pretty baffled at how good the response is to Heart Eyes. Even compared to Nosferatu, another critically-acclaimed horror movie that didn’t entirely land with me, at least I understand why people just adore that movie. Heart Eyes is just nothing, and even though I saw this a couple of days ago, I already feel it fading out of my memory.


Ryan’s Grade: D+