A killer rom-com! Heart Eyes (2025)

Sometimes a movie just knows what it is and what it wants to do and the team behind it are on-board/in-sync enough to make it happen. I was the only person in the theater and part of me was sorry there weren’t other people around to laugh with but the other part of me was extremely glad to laugh my ass off with impunity. And volume. 

Josh Ruben and the writing team (Philip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy) wrote a solid rom-com set in a serial killer slasher flick that, well, just made me happy. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good rom-com; I really do. But as I’ve opined lately, it’s an oft-flabby genre and if there’s one development I’ve gotten behind, it’s the rom-com/horror mash-up. 

Granted that this isn’t a new development; you could argue that the genre mix has been around since My Bloody Valentine (1982), but it’s been in the past few years, maybe decade, that we encounter more of these little marvels. One of my favorite films from last year, Lisa Frankenstein, is a more recent example. Of course, romantic comedy, as an element, has been around forever. Look no farther than Hitchcock’s suspense work beginning ih the thirties, or The Thin Man series, for examples of how to infuse comedy into mystery or crime and suspense. 

All of that said, few have been outright hoots form beginning to end. I found myself giggling throughout Ruben, et al’s flick. Admittedly, it’s not quite got the verve and rhythm of a Hecht or a Sturges, but the more horrific elements are muted by being repurposed for screwball comic turns. The Heart Eyes Killer dispatches his victims as gruesomely as any baddie, with couples being his target on Valentine's Day and in different cities, but because the focus is on our star-crossed couple at the center of the movie, the murdery aspect is hardly frightening. It’s a slasher film; people are going to get slashed.

And the couple at the center for the movie? Olivia Holt is Ally McCabe, a contractor for developing an ad campaign for Crystal Cane’s (Michaela Watkins - delightfully mean-spirited as the CEO going after others’ weaknesses so gleefully, I thought she might be Heart Eyes…) perfume line. The problem is that the campaign launches ahead fo Valentine’s Day and features a Herb Ritt’s styled video that features only tragic loves. It’s beautifully shot, but given that the HEK, as he’s referred to by law enforcement has already struck in Seattle, so the idea of love = death isn’t quite what the public wants. Social media blows up reaming the company for its inappropriate pandering and Ally, not without reason, feels a noose tightening or maybe hears a blade sharpening. The end of her career is well-nigh.

She confides as much to her pal Monica (an irrepressible Gigi Zumbado); at a coffee shop, she bumps into, literally, Jay Simmonds (Mason Gooding) as they order the exact same latte (what are the chances? Actually, pretty good, it turns out, the barista informs them as he tells them to get out of the way.) Ally takes off to go get fired, but it turns out that Crystal has to keep her on for contractual reasons, but promises that she will blacklist her. All of that said, Crystal brings in a consultant to work with Ally on a new campaign and who - pray tell, who - should it be, but Jay?!)

The set-up was borderline Devil Wears Prada-lite, but played so straight that you could be forgiven for forgetting the slaughter of a couple getting engaged at a winery that started the movie off. Actually, no. It’s hard to excise the image of a woman being crushed in a grape presser. 

The opening had me hooked. It wouldn’t have been out of place among the fake trailers for Tarantino and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse. HEK is a murderin’ kind of guy and does a fine job with knives, and arrows. Of course, his path and Jay and Ally’s will cross, but before that happens, they agree to meet for a strategy dinner. Jay doesn’t realize it’s a posh, romantic restaurant and neither of them accomplish anything. Ally is pissed because this reeks of romance and her heart’s been shattered by her ex, which Jay picks up on and we discover that he is overly genuinely earnest, and just enough to perhaps be creepy,

Of course, as these things go, she says something defensive and rude, he says something clueless and unfeeling and they leave before dinner is anywhere near done. Once out on the street, they bump into Ally’s ex and she kisses Jay for show and then both spend the first of several times explaining to a third party that the ARE NOT A COUPLE. The cab driver doesn’t believe them and later, neither does HEK. They can’t get him off their trail and even when they “kill” him in the first third of the movie, it’s pretty clear the only people who don’t know they’re a couple are them.

It’s a time-honored trope and happily recycled here as the seemingly unkillable killer rerturns, our couple finds themselves in a nearly abandoned police precinct and the meet-cute develops into a struggle to stay alive and talk about feelings! Neat date!

There’s a fun set-piece as they try to hide in a drive-in where the feature is His Girl Friday and where both Ally and Jay realize they’ve brought HEK to an all-you-can-kill buffet. They take refuge in a van with a randy couple engaging in some serious humping. Ally and Jay continue their heart-to-heart in shot/reverse shot close-ups over which are the oohs, aaahs, and grunts of the couple behind them until a scream of pleasure kind of switches to something else. And yep, another couple meet their end, hopefully doing something they love…well, until that last moment of terror.

From here, there’s more mayhem, and to say more I’d have to reveal a plot twist, but I am going to spoil the denouement. I’m assuming everyone knows they survive; and yes, all’s well that ends well, but it’s all in the journey and both Holt and Gooding turn in hilarious and really quite sweet turns. Holt has a kind of Elizabeth Banks quality about her that can go from silly to alluring to badass within a few beats - and convincingly, at that. Gooding is proving himself to be a really solid performer. I first noticed him in Booksmart and was impressed with his chops. The two together have real chemistry and expert comic timing and it’s usually this that ensures the success of any kind of romance…or comedy…particularly, in the face of utter horror. Good times!

The team behind the flick have some serious horror bonafides, and of course, Gooding features heavily in the new Scream movies, but I was taken by Stephen Murphy’s cinematography. I think this is his first feature and it’s an example of something I’ve been saying for a while; streaming and even regular broadcast television are more sophisticated visual media; it’s no longer the stretch it once was to go from the small screen to the large. 

The MVP is likely to be Brett W. Bachman’s editing. He’s got a ridiculous resume that includes Mandy, Pig, Color Out of Space, and Cooties (swear to god, if you haven’t seen this, do so soon). The film never feels rushed or overstuffed and hits its beats with expert timing. 

Altogether, this little flick hit all my sweet spots. It’s not groundbreaking cinema, but it’s enjoyable as hell and both sends up and honors the tropes of the genres its using unrepentantly. Better than flowers and chocolates!