It’s definitely the mask. The minute that Heart Eyes mask was designed, I’m pretty sure all the producers got giddy, and immediately got behind Josh Ruben’s Valentine’s Day pitch. I don’t think they knew the twisted, strange road his movie was going to take the audience through: happy death day all!
The Heart Eyes Killer (H.E.K. dubbed by the press) has showed up in random cities each Valentine’s Day, going on a couples killing spree, and then disappearing again. Ally (Olivia Holt) would be more worried about this, if 1) she were not single, and 2) she wasn’t worried she was gonna be fired from her marketing job by her pissed off boss Crystal (Michaela Watkins). Instead, Crystal forces Ally to work on the redesign under Jay (Mason Gooding), a marketing whiz whom Ally had a meet cute with earlier that day. Which, apparently the Heart Eyes Killer also saw…targeting the two of them as their “doomed couple” this year.
The Valentine’s Day horror movie has been a staple for years now. At first that was puzzling to me…but years and some movie theater makeouts have taught me how those primal feelings of fear/passion/etc are very close to one another. Josh Ruben tries to take that concept one level further than we’ve ever gone before with Heart Eyes. It’s success requires a tonal juggling act that might be impossible to pull off. I’ll give the director credit: he comes damn close, wildly swinging between terror and swooning, sometimes within a scene itself and somehow it working. Some of that heavy lifting works because of sneaky fun casting decisions in the side parts, meant to conjure memories of Valentine’s Day horror past. But the lion’s share of the credit goes to the game leads: Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding hold on for dear life and doing a decent job making believe that through this evil love can still be found.
But this is a horror movie, and the kills gotta deliver. Thankfully, the Valentine’s Theme is used to wonderful effect here starting with the grisly opening act, letting us know what kind of gross horror film we’re in for…and the demented weapons that will be in use. The big sequence is sadly teased in the trailer, but let’s face it, we’re all sitting up a little when Heart Eyes stumbles upon a carnival/drive in with hundreds of lovey dovey couples for him to get off on. Horror fans will have seen more gnarly kills before, but for the more squeamish part of the couple, know this is a, um, messier version of a scary movie than you might be accustomed to.
Heart Eyes could only have been made in today’s society. The years of buildup prepared audiences for a movie like this to come out now, and eagerly await its release. I would love to explain to someone from the 1930s that one of the big movie releases of a weekend was a movie about a person who wears a mask that murders people on Valentine’s Day, and that people would be excited for it. I wonder if we can do a time travel movie reversal from the 1930s, what that would look liket? Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly meet the wolf man? Glen Powell and Adria Arjona go on a safari in South Africa? Those don’t sound too bad I guess!