Heart Eyes Review: My Bloody Valentine *but it sparkles*

Director: Josh Ruben

Writers: Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landing, Michael Kennedy Rating: 3.5/5

Heart Eyes is the logical conclusion when a meet-cute leads to a murder. Director Josh Ruben (of Scare Me and Werewolves Within) said he wanted all the romantic moments to feel as “Nora Ephron” as possible, and all the horror moments to lean into Wes Craven, which is evident throughout the entire film.

True love.

Dating in itself can be a horror movie, but finding love while being hunted by a neon-masked killer adds a whole new layer to it. Set in Seattle, we meet Ally McCabe (Olivia Holt), a marketing executive with a bleak perspective of love, and Jay Simmons (Mason Gooding), a charming romantic who craves love, an overtly romantic business date, and a not-so-awkward kiss when they run into Ally’s ex-boyfriend marks them for death based on chemistry, and well, Heart Eyes isn’t wrong. Holt & Gooding are obnoxiously well paired. Holt’s heart is torn; she wants love, but her experience is pain. She balances cynicism and vulnerability while Gooding radiates so much emotional availability that it’s shocking he was written by men (is the world healing?)

Jordana Brewster (Detective Shaw) and Devon Sawa (Detective Hobbs) — yes, Hobbs & Shaw are an excellent addition to the film, the Detectives on the lookout for the Heart Eyes killer. Sawa is so hilarious that you forget it’s him, and Brewster remedies herself from her years…years of being in the most unbelievable franchise in existence.

The fun of Heart Eyes is that it never chooses between genres; it balances them both with bloody precision. The music that swells during romantic movies and the acting between Holt & Gooding play off remarkably well when seconds later someone’s head gets impaled. The tonal whiplash shouldn’t work, but Ruben’s ability to balance humour with horror is why it does. It’s tense and it’s funny. The writing is cheeky, and there are countless references to rom-coms, including a monologue. The kills are done with practical effects, which are as delightful as they are disgusting.

I love the colour tones of this film. Glossy hyper-colour for romantic scenes that fade into grit when Heart Eyes appears. The mask (created by Tony Gardner, who made the masks for Freaky, Totally Killer and Happy Death Day) is equal parts charming as it is frightening.

Heart Eyes wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. If you’re turning this on for layered social commentary on societal expectations of love or finding some sort of subversion of a horror canon, you’re in the wrong place. This film knows exactly what it is: a little ridiculous, a lot of fun and the cinematic equivalent to a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Sweet & self-aware.