Last Updated on February 10, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Unlike Halloween or Christmas, Valentine’s Day slashers are a comparatively rare breed. Given all the hearts, red decor, and messy feelings, it’s a little disappointing that we haven’t seen more blood and entrails added to the celebration. We’ve spent some quality time with a handful of absolute hotties over the years: My Bloody Valentine (1981), Hospital Massacre aka Be My Valentine, or Else (1982), Valentine (2001), and My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009), but it’s been years of cold nights since, and as they say, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Well, fret not, because romance is alive and well, and here to spill some blood. A lot of blood.
Heart Eyes features a murderers’ row of horror talent both on and offscreen. Directed by Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within), and penned by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day), and Michael Kennedy (Freaky), Heart Eyes isn’t lacking for an immense love and knowledge of the slasher genre. The cast, led by Olivia Holt (Totally Killer), Mason Gooding (Scream VI), Gigi Zumbado (Tone-Deaf), Devon Sawa (Final Destination, Hunter Hunter, Chucky), and Jordana Brewster (The Faculty, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) are no strangers to running, screaming, and fighting for their lives. All of this is to say that Heart Eyes is in very good and experienced hands that know exactly how to play an audience.
Holt plays Ally, an overtaxed employee at an advertising company who, after a recent break-up, could not be more over Valentine’s Day, much to the chagrin of her best friend, Monica (Zumbado). Things don’t get any easier for Ally when a charming freelance marketing agent, Jay (Gooding), is hired to assist her with her next ad pitch. Jay, a romantic optimist in search of genuine human connection, invites Ally to a fancy work dinner to discuss ideas. Just as their patience for the other begins to fray, the two are mistaken as a couple by the Heart Eyes Killer, a masked serial murderer with an arsenal of weapons who, for the past few years, has traveled from city to city killing couples on Valentine’s Day. Jay and Ally, who not only have very different opinions on love but also means of survival, are forced to work together to try and survive the night while drawing the attention of two beleaguered police detectives, Shaw (Brewster) and Hobbs (Sawa) who think this odd couple might be the key to finally unmasking Heart Eyes.
There’s a deft balance at work in Heart Eyes that allows the film to exist as both a sweet and sexy rom-com and a twisty, sharp-toothed slasher. Despite this seemingly strange marriage of subgenres, which ultimately works to the film’s benefit and sets it apart from its contemporaries, don’t mistake this for a soft-toed dalliance with horror. Heart Eyes is a steel-toed boot to the neck that runs full steam ahead with an appetite for everything you’d want to see from a slasher. Inventive and gory kills, compelling three-dimensional characters, twists upon twists, and a third act that had me howling with enthusiasm, all with a killer whose mask and attire make them an instantly iconic-looking figure. Seriously, where’s the reboot of Todd McFarlane’s Movie Maniacs action figure series when you need it?
As could be expected from the team behind the film, Heart Eyes harkens back to the slashers of the late ’90s and early ’00s, like Scream 2, Urban Legend, and Cherry Falls. But there’s another element here too, one tied to the giallos and slasher films of Italy. Heart Eyes fucks. There’s a sexual awareness in the film, an unsubtle use of phallic and yonic instruments of death that not only highlights the sexual tension between Ally and Jay, but feels progressive. The film isn’t explicit by any means and doesn’t feature nudity, but rather the ideas Heart Eyes is engaging with feel topical, particularly in this era where sexual expression and freedom seem so often at odds with prudishness, and religious and politically backed repression. All I’m saying is, Jason and Freddy never got hit with a dildo.
Heart Eyes is an absolute blast and feels certain to not only be one year’s most fun horror experiences but also destined to become a fan favorite. Hopefully, enough people say “Be Mine” to Heart Eyes, because we could be looking at a new slasher icon and, finally, a Valentine’s Day slasher franchise to keep our hearts racing for a long time to come.
