Summary

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff chats with the Heart Eyes writing trio, Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy.

Starring Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster, Heart Eyes follows one unlucky young couple as they’re stalked by a Valentine’s Day killer.

In this interview, find out how Heart Eyes went from “80% horror” to a horror/rom-com hybrid, how they crafted the perfect kills, and which classic scary movies are their comfort watches.

When you just need more after the credits roll, always look to the writers. For a genre mash-up like Heart Eyes, there was a lot to explore as far as a Valentine’s Day horror with heavy rom-com vibes goes. To unpack the original ideas we don’t see on-screen and all those gory kills, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff spoke with the writing trio behind Josh Ruben’s holiday horror, Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy.
Heart Eyes started out as “80% horror,” according to Murphy, but quickly evolved into a hybrid of two major genres that would flip a slasher on its head. When the writing duo behind Freaky (Landon and Kennedy) got involved, they wanted to try something unusual. “I [wanted] this to be a rom-com that keeps getting invaded by a horror movie,” Landon tells Nemiroff, revealing that their goal became crafting “the goriest rom-com ever made.” Thus, a Valentine’s Day killer was born to wreak havoc on stars Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Devon Sawa, and Jordana Brewster.
Check out the full conversation below for more major changes from the original script, how to create the perfect kill scenes, a rundown of the epic sequence that didn’t make the cut, and which classic horror movies are this trio’s comfort watches.
‘Heart Eyes’ Changed in Major Ways From the Original Draft

“It just continued to evolve.”

PERRI NEMIROFF: What would you say is the biggest difference between draft one of the screenplay and the finished film that everyone’s going to watch?
PHILLIP MURPHY: To me, it was, like, 80% horror, and then I’d say 20% rom-com, and then the more I worked on it, it started to get a little bit closer to the rom-com. Because I don’t think in my mind I knew that I had a rom-com. I thought I had a great horror premise, but it just continued to evolve. Then, when they came on, again, it evolved even more. With Josh [Ruben], it evolved even more.
Do you remember what happened, or what ideas someone pitched you, that made you realize that leaning more rom-com would make your original idea even stronger?
MURPHY: I think it was Chris [Stone] at Spyglass, and he was just like, “Valentine’s Day,” and I was like, “Okay. Alright. Got it.”
It wasn’t even Valentine’s Day before?
MURPHY: No, it wasn’t. It was just a first date.
Oh, wow. Did the killer have the same motive?
MURPHY: No, he was just killing couples, and it evolved into this thing. I’ve gotta say, I had an idea in my head that it was a really romantic ending and a really feel-good ending, and I still had that in my draft. When I saw the finished film, I was like, “That’s what I had in my head.” So, maybe subconsciously, I thought that I knew what I had, but in the moment, I was like, “Oh, this is going to be a great way into a horror movie.”
I’m a big fan of holiday horror, so I’m glad that Valentine’s Day wound up being a big thing.
MURPHY: When I was pitched that, I was like, “Oh, of course!”
CHRISTOPHER LANDON: I’m trying to remember. Was the killer revealed at the end of your first draft?
MURPHY: No, it was just this really mysterious person.
LANDON: It was more like a Michael Myers kind of thing.
MURPHY: Yeah.
LANDON: Then, when we came on, I had a meeting with the gentleman you just referenced, and when I read it, I was like, “Okay, I feel like we almost need to flip this a bit. I want this to be a rom-com that keeps getting invaded by a horror movie.” So that was where Michael and I kind of stepped in and said, “Okay, how can we reshape this a bit?” Because for me, that was the hook. I really kept saying, “Let’s make the goriest rom-com ever made,” but knowing that we still wanted it to be a slasher movie. We wanted it to be scary. But that was what felt really fresh and unique to me about the concept.
The balance of rom-com and horror is very impressive here. Was there any particular scene where it was the most difficult to find the right balance and not teeter too much one way or the other?
MURPHY: I don’t think finding a balance was difficult. It was just knowing when the baton had to get handed off. I think a really great example of it is — it’s even in the trailer — where Ally and Jay are in her apartment, and they’re having this kind of classic, like, “Wait a minute, do we both have stars in our eyes?” kind of a moment. And then she realizes, “Oh my god, my vibrator’s sitting out, and he can see it,” so she has to go and get rid of it. It’s such a rom-com-y moment, like, “Oh my god, my messy apartment,” and then when she opens her closet door, there’s a killer standing in there.
Olivia plays that so perfectly.
MICHAEL KENNEDY: She’s so good.
MURPHY: She’s amazing. That’s what was so fun about writing the movie and then also just getting to watch Josh make it because it was like this constant of how the interplay actually works really seamlessly. It’s like that gear change happens suddenly, but it just works.
‘Heart Eyes’ Hinges on Olivia Holt’s Performance

“Olivia really fucking owned Ally.”

Image via Sony Pictures

Bringing up Olivia, your entire cast just really seems to get the movie that you’re making, and they all make their roles feel so uniquely their own. That’s making me wonder, of all of the characters in this movie, which one do you think changed most from script to screen based on who you cast?
KENNEDY: I don’t know if any changed, but Chris and I talked a lot about writing Ally, knowing the movie was going to hinge on the actor’s performance. Any little deviation from hitting that target could make her really shrewd in a way you don’t want her to be or too bubbly in a way you don’t want her to be. So I don’t know if much changed other than Olivia really fucking owned Ally. Thank God she’s in the movie.
LANDON: But we had to put up a little bit of a fight early on because you always get this note. You always get, “This character’s unlikable.” And that was part of it was like, she needs to represent the kind of cynical, down-with-love point of view because that’s also A.) a rom-com trope and B.) it is part of her character’s arc. Because behind cynicism is always her, and so it’s something that we really wanted to still, in an earnest way, unpack, along with all the tropes of a rom-com. So, the fact that she plays that balance so well…
MURPHY: Because you still like her.
That note drives me nuts. If someone isn’t unlikable to a degree, then they’re not complex. If they’re not complex, they’re boring, and why do I care?
KENNEDY: Yeah, exactly. It’s happened to me in movies before where you have a very bland character because they don’t want them in the first 15 minutes to come off as anything other than likable, but then they end up not even being likable. They’re just flat.
LANDON: You’re not talking about a specific project, are you?
KENNEDY: No, I’m not talking about a very specific movie. [Laughs] I mean, the characters really do pop, and from Phil’s first draft, they pop to me, but Chris and I got to have some fun with what Phil created and then go, “Okay, here’s the obnoxious, loud, sexualized best friend. How do we use that to our advantage?” She probably changed quite a bit because you did have the best friend character mostly off-screen, right?
MURPHY: She was in two scenes.
KENNEDY: Yeah. So, you lose Gigi in Act Two, but you don’t lose her at all because she’s so memorable in her performance. It was fun to just kind of craft all these, like, stereotypical rom-com characters, and then, as Chris said, put them in a horror movie.
These ‘Heart Eyes’ Kill Scenes Were “Killer” to Write

The trio also reveals the gory scene that didn’t make the final cut.

Image via Sony Pictures

I’ll lean into the gorier aspects of the movie now. Of all the kill scenes in this movie, which came most naturally to you all, where it was like it just flowed right out, but then also, which was the one that was the most difficult to craft in the writing phase?
LANDON: The opening scene was literally something that I think I’ve been wanting to write for a long time. When I heard somebody actually hire somebody to follow their proposal with a camera, I was like, “That’s just the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard of.” That’s always just bothered me.
And you get to use it twice!
LANDON: It was the first thing that I thought of. I was like, “This movie has to start with somebody proposing to somebody and then getting blasted in the head with an arrow.” So that one just came out of years of just being like, “I don’t like that taking a picture of your proposal.” I don’t know, it gives me the ick, I guess I’m going to call it. So, no, that one was smooth. I had it in me. It was ready to come out.
What about the most challenging one?
KENNEDY: The most challenging scene for us to write, I thought, was the police station. I thought that was a hard scene because you’re doing so much. You’re putting Mason in the spot of being a potential suspect, the audience probably knows Heart Eyes is still out there, but the cops don’t know, and you’re doing these bouncing from location to location and stuff. It’s like, how do you have a fight scene with someone chained to a table? There were a lot of moving pieces with that scene. I remember you and I having to sit and take pieces of that scene, and you’d go right for doing the thing, and I’d be, like, in the room with them talking and stuff. That was difficult. But all the kills, ask this guy because he’s the one who comes up with all the amazing kills.
LANDON: I kill people. [Laughs]
MURPHY: The driving scene in mine was at a carnival, and it was actually one that took me a long time to write.
KENNEDY: The set pieces.
MURPHY: When there’s really a lot going on, they are tough to write. Then, when it got to the drive-in, I’m sure it didn’t get any easier. Same with the police station scene. When there are so many moving parts and so many characters, it’s a killer.
LANDON: And we had more kills that didn’t even make it.
KENNEDY: Yeah, we did. We had kills that didn’t even make the final cut of the movie or didn’t even get shot.

Image via Sony Pictures

I don’t know if you want to back-pocket any for a future film, or maybe a sequel, but can you share anything that you have?
LANDON: I’ll give you the setting. We have one that we loved that was in a spa.
KENNEDY: They actually mention the spa.
LANDON: It was a couple’s massage, and it was great.
It’s the news report one, right?
LANDON: Yes. So it’s mentioned in the movie, but it was an actual sequence, and it was just brutal and really funny, and just the setting — the lit candles and zen music …
KENNEDY: “Don’t go too hard,” and she gets stabbed.
LANDON: The husband’s really uncomfortable with getting a massage, and he’s worried that they’re going to see his privates and the wife is really like, “Oh, get over it. You’re so boring.” They’re both in this couple’s massage room, and they’re both face down in the cradles, so they don’t know who’s in the room with them, and Heart Eyes comes in and just brutally stabs the wife over and over and over and over again.
KENNEDY: He’s like, “What’s going on over there?”
LANDON: And it sounds like she’s just getting a massage, so he’s like, “Wow.” Then the killer rubs his back, but it’s her blood all over his gloves, and it’s smearing all over his back.
MURPHY: It was just super gross.
KENNEDY: It’s super gross, and there’s a big, big chase scene after he realizes because blood goes under his cradle and he’s like, “What the fuck?” Then there’s a really fun chase sequence that happens there.
LANDON: That took you through a sauna and a steam room. It was fun.
MURPHY: There was a kill that I had in an older draft where there’s a couple walking, and the girl is just asking one of those kinds of crazy questions, like, “Would you love me if I didn’t have eyelids? Would you love me?” And all of a sudden, an arrow just comes out of the back of her head, sticking through her eye.
KENNEDY: It’s amazing.
MURPHY: I was like, “Oh man, that was good.” But the kills are great.
I like those, “What If,” “Would You Rather” kinds of games, so I’m into that one.

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Do you remember the very first time that you realized, “I’m really good at crafting horror movie kills?”
LANDON: [Laughs] It’s funny, when I was writing the Paranormal Activity movies, those movies are weird because they don’t feel like they’re written, but some of those movies have really complicated sequences. So I think I started to kind of realize, “Oh, wait, I kind of have a knack for seeing things spatially and figuring out what could be used to kill.” The opening of Freaky was a blast to write because it was like, “How many over-the-top ways can I figure out how to kill people?” Like snapping a tennis racket in half and then jamming it back together inside someone’s head. For me, it’s stupid.
KENNEDY: The opening of Freaky was so fun to write. Remember when we had a treehouse?
I love how happy this makes all of you!
These Horror Movies are Like a “Cup of Hot Cocoa”

What’s your comfort scary movie?

Image via Warner Bros. 

One of the questions that I asked in Devon [Sawa]’s room was based on an Instagram post he made. I’m going to paraphrase, but he was emphasizing how happy horror-comedy makes him, because it’s an opportunity to escape the crazy world that we live in. When you need an escape, what horror movie do you turn to that actually makes you feel better?
KENNEDY: Comfort horror.
Comfort horror is very important!
MURPHY: I mean, Halloween is so relaxing because it’s so quiet.
KENNEDY: Black Christmas.
MURPHY: And even though it’s set in Illinois, it’s filmed in Pasadena. Yeah, Black Christmas, too. You can feel how chilly it is outside in that movie.
KENNEDY: Those movies are like…
LANDON: It’s like a cup of hot cocoa.
KENNEDY: It really is. Those are the types of movies that are so well done you almost forget you’re watching a movie. There are some times in those kinds of movies where I’m like, “Do these people know they’re being filmed?” Because they’re so well lived in, and I love a movie that feels lived in. But also, I have to bring up Scream 2 because I do in everything. That is my fucking movie.

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You’re speaking to my heart right now.
KENNEDY: Right? I had it on the other day.
MURPHY: Pretty much anything, for me, [John] Carpenter, like The Fog. It feels so good. I just feel so relaxed.
LANDON: It’s like hot cocoa. Just like the opening of that movie. And The Thing.
KENNEDY: I have a weird one during the Halloween season when I want to just chill and relax — Halloween II, for some reason. yeah. That’s the Halloween movie I put on that I could, like, nap to it. The music in The Fog is so relaxing.
Heart Eyes is in theaters now.

Heart Eyes

Release Date

February 7, 2025

Director

Josh Ruben

Writers

Michael Kennedy, Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon

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