Heart Eyes is ridiculous, gory, and incredibly self-aware, yet somehow underwhelms. In 2023 we received the Pilgrim in the form of the long awaited Thanksgiving feature, since then it’s been a little light on the Holiday slashers and in the year of the aforementioned sequel, the Heart Eyes Killer (“H.E.K.” for short) doesn’t quite capture my heart. 

 

While having some hilarious kills and some clever gore, along with some obvious yet funny meta humor, Heart Eyes can’t nail its pacing and stumbles in its reveal. The biggest fault of which is that the reveal doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when placed against the legacy of the Heart Eyes Killer. It almost feels like the creatives made this decision last second and never really considered the audience may have a second thought about the person behind the mask. 

 

The dynamic between Jay Simmonds (Mason Gooding) and Ally McCabe (Olivia Holt) meeting during a meet-cute in a very stereotypical rom-com kind of way is genius. This immediately allows the lack of time the characters have together on screen to be more believable when love suddenly becomes part of the equation. Gooding and Holt have a connection between the two that is palpable through the screen, even as business associates they exude a sexual tension. 

 

Supported by a very limited cast, the two detectives assigned to the Heart Eyes case are partners Detective Jeanine Shaw (Jordana Brewster) and Detective Zeke Hobbs (Devon Sawa), get it… a Fast and the Furious reference. Brewster and Hobbs are the usual types of detectives you’d expect from a slasher, certain the leads are the killers because they were the only ones at the scene of the crime when it occurred. They have a flow between the pair that really works during their minimal screen time together, they may be the barebones detectives you’d expect, but they make their dynamic work. Apart from the obvious name recognition. 

 

When creatives Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy partner up - it is almost certainly worth a look. Landon, apart from a poorly received Netflix title, delivers golden horror comedies. Kennedy on the other hand when going solo has struck out more than he’s managed to hit with titles like It’s A Wonderful Knife and Time Cut being the lesser of his films. But when the two pair together, they get absolute gold such as the body swap horror, Freaky. Heart Eyes has its flaws and jokes that certainly miss the mark, but there’s a rush of originality here while holding onto the genre’s most recognizable cliches. 

 

Director Josh Ruben created the best videogame film adaptation to ever grace our screens, with his title Werewolves Within sitting at a comfortable 86% Tomatometer score. Werewolves Within has some pretty tongue in cheek kills and in Heart Eyes, Ruben has certainly upped the ante. For those worried the trailer may have given away the best kills, it has and it hasn’t, as the Red Band trailer that capitalizes on catching the viewer’s eyes with gore is missing the context of the scenario. 

 

Valentine’s Day may be past us but this is a fantastic date night feature for the couple that wants the best of both worlds - a slasher and a romantic comedy all in one location. If you’re able to give it some leeway when it comes to its reveals and a bit of the humor within, Heart Eyes might not make us fall, but it does make us swoon for a one night stand (against a serial killer).