‘Heart Eyes’ Puts Love in a Killer’s Crosshairs
"Heart Eyes" blends slasher horror, murder-mystery, and romantic comedy with admirable ambition but mixed results.
Funnier than expected in its snarky riffs on horror, but persistently witless in its slasher plotting, the romantic-horror-comedy Heart Eyes juggles genres with gusto, but the act still falls flat.
Directed by Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within), Heart Eyes commits equally to its gory tale of the Heart Eyes Killer, who murders couples on Valentine’s Day, and the meet-cute romance of office co-workers Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding). The bickering twosome aren’t dating, but, while out for an ambiguously professional dinner meeting, they’re mistaken for a couple by the Heart Eyes Killer, who targets them as prey.
Ally and Jay could be mistaken for a couple by anybody watching, given their undeniable chemistry, played for sensual heat and for laughs by the feisty Holt and suave Scream-king Gooding. In fact, the running joke of various strangers assuming Ally and Jay are a couple pays rich dividends.
The movie’s deadpan humor — courtesy of a script by Phillip Murphy and Freaky filmmakers Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy — is its most reliable feature. And the jokes don’t stop even when H.E.K., as the masked fiend is known in the press, is stalking and killing victims. In one scene, the camera grabs a cheeky shot of the gaping hole in a victim’s impaled head before H.E.K. impales them again just for good measure and another gruesome punchline.
Heart Eyes supplies its relentless killer with a seemingly existential motive for all the slaughter. Lethal with a blade or any sharp implement, H.E.K. clearly wants to drive a wedge between lovers and Valentine’s Day by turning February 14 into an annual bloodbath.
As depicted in an amusing prologue, the killer’s first spree hit Boston. The next year it was Philly. This year, H.E.K. is terrorizing Seattle, which, despite frantic warnings to the public, still teems with p.d.a.-happy paramours out on Valentine’s dates. H.E.K. can’t be the only anti-Cupid who’d want to murder the lovey-dovey vibe.
Then again, maybe it’s simply that murdering is H.E.K.’s kink, as suggested by police detectives Hobbs (Devon Sawa) and Shaw (Jordana Brewster), who are not-so-hot on the trail of the killer. Hobbs and Shaw — the movie slows down to make sure no one misses the Fast & Furious reference — are comically hard-boiled cops, but Sawa and Brewster are not as smooth at the genre juggling as the two leads.
The film falters in its stabs at police procedural, and with the customary who’s-behind-the-mask mystery, yielding plot turns that led this critic to the solution long before the reveal. The chills and scares are also undermined by — surprise — the constant attempts at comedy, especially whenever the tone bends towards parody.
Michaela Watkins, for instance, as Ally and Jay’s raging narcissist boss, appears to be acting in some over-the-top sitcom where the laugh track is on the fritz. The elite horror-comedy The Substance told us and showed us: the balance must be respected.
Here, a Pretty Woman-style shopping montage, when Ally’s bestie Monica (Gigi Zumbado) helps get her ready for her dinner with Jay, reads as an intentionally cheesy but dated rom-com spoof. Fine, but the scene’s placement kills the movie’s momentum.
Likewise, an ostensibly tense scene of someone desperately searching for a friend at the airport is sunk by the odd choice of having the actor just run around in front of the terminal yelling their friend’s name. The scene seems like parody, or a sad indication that the character has no idea that departing passengers don’t stand on the curb outside the airport. The genre blend feels off, the tension deflated.
The balance is way off in the film’s showcase set piece, with H.E.K. set loose in a drive-in theater showing of His Girl Friday. Armed with a blade, the slasher dives into the crowd in what boils down to a disturbed mass killing inside a movie theater that, due to the lighthearted portrayal, comes off too comedically detached to be frightening or funny.
When Ruben finds the right mix of suspense, scares, laughs, and romance, as in one particularly effective H.E.K. sneak attack, it’s generally because the comedy is riding shotgun, not steering the vehicle, and the creepy, glow-eyed countenance of the killer is close by.
Heart Eyes (★★☆☆☆) is rated R and playing in theaters nationwide. Visit www.fandango.com.
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.