• Release year: 2025
• Director: Josh Ruben.
• Producers: Greg Gilreath, Adam Hendricks, and Christopher Landon.
• Screenplay by: Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy.
• Cinematography by: Stephen Murphy.
• Music by: Jay Wadley.

Shotgun Commentary: completely average but not a bad time.

Review

Heart Eyes is the kind of slasher that you will have forgotten all about within thirty minutes after watching. It is still fun most of the time; just don’t expect it to blow your mind.

The film follows failed med student Ally (Olivia Holt) as she fights to keep a marketing job she never wanted in the first place. Her job is in peril after a disastrous campaign in which she connects love to death for a Valentine’s ad. So her boss Crystal (Michaela Watkins)—a cheap version of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina (Thunderbolts*, 2025)—hires freelancer Jay (Mason Gooding) to fix the problem. Rather than doing so, he opts for trying to flirt with Ally. Because who wants to be professional when there is a slight chance of getting laid on Valentine’s, amirite?

Ally is not amused by his behaviour, but in a desperate attempt to not look lonely in front of her ex, she kisses Jay. As a result, Heart Eyes sees them and mistakes them for a couple, thus adding them to his kill list. The message is clear: keep your PDA to a minimum if you don’t want to die a horrible death. Which, to be fair, is not that crazy of a request.

Lots of whining, little investigating

The movie criticises everything that is loathsome about Valentine’s in no uncertain terms. There is no space for reflection or debate; you will get slapped in the face with the cringe of it all, and then you will receive a verbal explanation of how disgusting it all is, in case you haven’t got the visual message. It would be the perfect film for the “Valentine’s is a capitalist trap” fan club if it weren’t for the ending. Sure, the film tells you how terrible Valentine’s is…but it is still a romantic comedy at heart. A very gory, bloody romantic comedy, to be exact.

Now for the slasher bit… the prognosis is not great. If you know the least bit about slashers, you will probably have an idea of the ending within the first twenty minutes, half an hour tops. In fact, even a complete newbie to the subgenre will very likely at least get half of the mystery solved quite early on.

The mystery aspect of slashers is often a very overlooked element, one that usually gets lost in the bloodbath of gore and guts. Don’t get me wrong, the offal is a key aspect of any good slasher, but so is the surprise factor. If you do not feel like inventing a whole centuries-long lore about a supernatural creature, the least you can give your slasher is a good old unmasking, Scooby-Doo style, at the very end.

Final thoughts

Still, the story does not overstay its welcome. It is a little slow at first, but despite a couple of denser instances, the whole movie goes down smoothly. The acting is surprisingly good for a slasher but also manages to keep that over-the-top factor you expect from the subgenre. The unmasked evil displays just enough madness to be cartoonish but not quite reaching Scream (1996) levels. And the final blow is poetic and gruesome, so overall, you cannot complain.

All in all, Heart Eyes is just tacky enough to be fun, sugary enough to be considered Valentine’s themed, and gory enough to be a good slasher. As far as Valentine’s entertainment goes, you could do a lot worse.

Advice to take from this movie:

• If there is a killer of couples on the loose, maybe don’t go around kissing people in the middle of the street?
• If someone looks, smells, and acts like a killer. They are probably the killer.
• Never hide from a killer inside a wine press… or inside any kind of press for that matter.

What’s your take? Have you watched Heart Eyes? Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message on my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀