Heart Eyes (2025)
Romance is dead.
I felt like we needed to peruse the movie store, so i opened up a couple of tabs of different streamers and then just started scrolling tonight. Didn’t take me long in all honesty - i found one right at the front of the list of “newly added.” Still, for the proper store experience I made sure I went down a few more digital aisles just to make sure it’s what I was feeling - and the more I looked the more I said to myself “yeah, yeah I do feel like some horror again.” Not to say I ever really don’t feel like a horror movie - doesn’t even generally have to be good and I’m normally in the mood for it - but it’s been a little while since I know that it’s not the preferred genre of most anyone who watches the weekly flick with me these days. Still, I like my spooky splatters - which isn’t just a nickname to a late night Taco Bell run - so I felt it was time. The help sweeten the deal though, this one even has comedy attached. Everyone loves googly eyes, but tonight’s romantic victim is none other than Heart Eyes.
A serial killer is at large, but only strikes on valentines day. The relentless boogeyman targets couples - but there is no shortage of collateral damage when it comes to romance. It’s a new year and a new Valentines day, and once again the killings have started somewhere new. That is largely far from our lead’s mind at the moment though, as she’s having a bit of a hang up with a break up and her campaign pitch for the company she works at needs a real bad glow up. Apparently the “to die for” pitch of diamonds doesn’t go as well with the masses when coupled to stage-play dramatized deaths playing out from all the classics like Romeo and Juliet or Titanic. The head lady has called in the big gun to help get it sorted, and oh no wouldn’t you know he’s hot. Remember that whole killer thing though? Yeah, it quickly becomes the leads problem when the killer notices her throwing on the kiss moves to the new guy in a jealous “the ex has just showed up” fashion. Will either of them survive, will they get together, or will they manage to not throw in jokes in there?
Actors do a good job here. On an individual basis, they sell exactly what the movie wants - be it incompetence, laughs, or being all doe-eyed. It might be hard for some to really find it feeling like awards should be raining out of the sky for them, because the movie itself can feel very campy at times, but I don’t think there’s any real instances of the actors phoning it in or not doing what the movie calls for. On a chemistry level, it actually ends up working very well, and I’m sure those “will they won’t they” sitcom soap opera types would appreciate the main pair as they Hallmark channel their way through their screen relationship in whatever form of the word it may take. It’s endearing, perhaps a bit cringe at times (which just tells me that it’s accurate) , and often times with enough comedy layered on it that if it was a pancake someone would ask you if you wanted some pancake with all that comedy. Line deliveries for the comedy are pretty well done as well - I really don’t have much complaints about the acting here - if there was something that felt a bit lacking or off I’d really put it more in our next section than on the people playing them.
Yeah, that’s right, characters. Some of them get a little bit of depth. The main pair even get to have progression as the movie goes, building up to somewhere they weren’t when they started. Side characters? Exactly as stated in the job description - they are there for their bits or parts and then largely vanish. The killer? Not the most intimidating design I’ve ever seen, but pretty functionally solid as a villain. They have enough of the Scream style getting knocked-around that they still feel somewhat plausible and not unholy unnatural - Although at times they have a knack for vanishing so quickly that it certainly doesn’t come off as “some dude vaulting into a bush off screen” as much as them actually vanishing. Now, you may have thought my labeling side characters as pretty much just screen fodder to be the negative part - but that’s par for the course in most movies. Where it might be a bit of a negative is that some people might not like how the characters act - mains or otherwise. Sure, sometimes it might be a bad decision here or there, or maybe the comedy part is interrupting a groove you were getting with that character or something - a persons tolerance for corny isn’t always as solid as mine. Not bad enough that I didn’t have fun with the movie, but like I just said - sometimes the amount of stupid it takes to break my enjoyment might be a little off the common Geiger counter.
So you are asking, what about the kills man? It’s got some in here for sure, and it doesn’t really hold back either. It’s got some gore in there - I wouldn’t call it quite as intense as a zombie flick though. Perhaps it’s a situational thing, but although you will get a shot or three of holes going through people and it is more dressed up then the red plugs of yesteryear, it for me really doesn’t reach that same semi-gross level of guts spilling out and people gnawing on things that you’d get in the cannibal undead type. I’d say the most brutal kills are most likely the final batch, but it’s enough to keep the slasher-happy gorehounds content - but if you are a bit squeamish around blood, perhaps you won’t enjoy it as much. Honestly, the vomiting scene was more upsetting to me, but there’s just something about the sound of it even when played for laughs, you know?
The sets and costumes are all pretty decent. It’s one of them modern flicks, so outside of the killer expect a lot of modern casual, dress casual, and some up-dressed fancy but nothing that would break your immersion of it being the real world. The killers costume isn’t horrible - it’s effectively some guy in a trench coat strapped with a bunch of stabbing or cutting implements. The mask is the main distinctive part, and although the heart-shaped eyes are the defining point, I can’t necessarily say that the mask as a whole really strikes me as this terrifying thing. Maybe it’s actually the heart shaped eyes that ironically kill it, but honestly I think the part that really gets me off the band wagon is more the mouth and the what I think is supposed to be a lipstick smear kind of look about the mouth. If that thing just had a normal miner sixty-niner filter on there instead, I’d probably find it more intimidating, but I get you gotta do stuff to try and set your mask apart. The weapons available to the killer are pretty fun as well, without being too overly complicated or out of the normal - your knives of various sizes, a little crossbow with it’s collapsible darts, and whatever else they might need to grab and beat a person.
Audio is alright. Balance was well done, and I never had problems hearing lines. Some might find deliveries to be a bit uneven with other people’s opinions as they can get a bit cheesy for sure. The whole rom-com undertones and goofiness probably won’t be for everyone, but I feel at least some of the jokes should land even if they all don’t. Let’s face it, panic hitting a killer in the face with a vibrator is funny. Music wise it’s got some songs in there, and they all play into what’s on screen without sticking around for too long. I recognize the intro country song, but it’s not something that I’d particularly be able to call out the name or artist on like I could some classic rock. Jokes are subjective, so you know how that goes, but there is a string of references to other titles in there that happens at one point rapid-fire style, even though they do it throughout the movie as well. For the thinking type, just think your standard romance topics and you’ll pretty much have it cooked before watching. I was here more for the laughs and the slaying, so to be honest I was even less paying attention for super deep thoughts then normal - but there is for sure at least throw away lines that people could go off about when it comes to being conscious of something, being it commercialization, romance, or being environmentally conscious.
I had fun with this. Got a good chuckle in, called at least three elements before they even happened, and overall just enjoyed myself. There’s just something to the lack of expectations I can bring into a horror movie that makes it so easy to be entertained, but thankfully the movie didn’t really make it hard anyways. It’s put together pretty well, and I could see it becoming a good V-day staple for horror couples as it does have a much lighter mood then either of the Bloody Valentine movies. Slasher fans will probably have a good time, I’m a bit wishy washy about saying a normal folk would as well considering the violence level - but at least nothing in here is mean spirited, so as long as the stomach is fine with some gore most watching it would I imagine have a good time here.