Well, shut my mouth.
Just a few hours — I repeat, hours — after writing that Hollywood never releases a classic romantic movie on Valentine’s Day, I see a film that proves me wrong. It just happens to also be an ultraviolent slasher. Touché, Hollywood. You win this round.
Then again with a film as good as Josh Ruben’s “Heart Eyes,” everyone’s a winner. Ruben is the director of the brilliant 2021 horror comedy Werewolves Within, hands down the best movie ever adapted from a video game. It comes as no surprise that his follow-up would do the same thing for another underwhelming subgenre. “Heart Eyes” raises the bar for emoji movies, which sounds like faint praise since “The Emoji Movie” forgot to install a bar, but it’s still true.
For the last two years a serial killer in a mask that looks like the “heart eyes” emoji has gone on a Valentine’s Day killing spree, brutally slaughtering adorable couples across the country. This year, Heart Eyes has set their sights on Seattle, where an adorably clumsy advertising executive named Ally (Olivia Holt, “Totally Killer”) has just met cute with her hunky and emotionally available new workplace rival, Jay (Mason Gooding, “Scream VI”). Ally is still getting over her ex-boyfriend and has a randy comic relief best friend, Monica (Gigi Zumbado), who takes her for old-fashioned shopping montages to cheer her up.
Oh, but Ally and Jay have the world’s worst first date, culminating in the sudden appearance of her ex. To make him jealous she kisses Jay, who kisses her back, which attracts the attention of Heart Eyes, who proceeds to chase them across the city and try to kill them in romantic locales like a botanical garden, a merry-go-round, and a drive-in movie theater playing “His Girl Friday.”
Fans of Ruben’s earlier work know two things: He loves horror movies, and he loves love. “Werewolves Within” and “Heart Eyes” are both horror movies that interrupt a heartwarming love story, where the leads absolutely have to end up together or I swear to god I will scream. Some genre mash-ups fall into the trap of favoring one genre more than the other, sometimes a lot more, but “Heart Eyes” is an engrossing and genuinely funny romantic comedy with and without all the murders. That it’s a formulaic rom-com is all part of the charm.
Romantic comedies, just like slashers, are in the business of giving the audience exactly the same thing, over and over again, but different. The screenplay for “Heart Eyes” — credited to Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy — adheres to the conventions of the rom-com genre in every conceivable way, but it knows what makes those tropes popular and how to make them sing. If you go to “Heart Eyes” hoping for a good old-fashioned rom-com, you’ll get one. With a scene where someone’s face gets viscerally squished by a machine press.
If you go to “Heart Eyes” hoping for a good old-fashioned slasher, you’ll mostly get that too. The formulas don’t match up perfectly, and “Heart Eyes” largely skips the part where the killer usually slaughters their way through the supporting cast for two whole acts, until the actual heroes figure out what kind of movie they’re in. But in a rom-com the heroes/love interests are always our anchor, so once Heart Eyes starts to attack Ally and Jay, it’s like the film moves straight to the pulse-pounding climax, then backtracks a bit and ramps back up again. And then one more time for good measure.
Of course no slasher movie is complete without memorable murders, and “Heart Eyes” murders many, memorably. And yet Ruben miraculously manages to take those brutal slayings and make them feel part-and-parcel with the film’s otherwise heightened, chintzy comedy vibe. It’s truly gross to watch someone stabbed through the mouth with a tire-iron. It’s somehow cute to watch two mismatched rom-com leads bicker about removing it, all while the corpse’s wide-open maw and dead, piercing eyes take up the whole silver screen. Priorities, people! Priorities!
Speaking of priorities: “Heart Eyes” co-stars Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster as Detectives Hobbs and Shaw, and yes, they make that joke, and yes, Jordana Brewster is in the “Fast and Furious” movies. So according to the “Last Action Hero” rules, this means in the “Heart Eyes” universe somebody else plays Vin Diesel’s sister in that franchise. It was probably another “As the World Turns” alumni. Presumably Emmy Rossum. But maybe no one cares about that but me. Anyway, I digress.
“Heart Eyes” seems destined to become a Valentine’s Day favorite, that rare horror movie with a great and charming love story, and that even rarer romantic comedy with a great and savage serial killer. So once again, I admit it. I was wrong. Sometimes Hollywood does release a classic Valentine’s Day movie in February. Just not usually.
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