Another seasonal holiday is just around the bend, so you know what that means — another holiday-themed horror film. Though Christmas and Halloween might have the market cornered on holiday horror — with some members being all-time classics like Black Christmas (the original, not the several terrible remakes) and, of course, Halloween — sometimes the other holidays get some love. Eli Roth stuffed horror fans with gore with his grotesque 2022 hit Thanksgiving, the Oscar-nominated The Substance ushered in an exciting new year for the genre, and My Bloody Valentine paints the town red in the name of love. The latter example is the most relevant to today’s conversation. Not because Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us, but because Heart Eyes wants to give My Bloody Valentine’s “The Miner” a run for his money as the holiday’s ultimate horror mascot.
Helmed by the director of the cult-favorite game adaptation Werewolves Within, comedian and frequent “Dropout” collaborator Josh Ruben, Heart Eyes is angling its Cupid’s Arrow toward two prime goals. Not only is the film setting out to bring the thrills and kills that slashers are so well-known for, but it’s also attempting to keep its audience engaged with a lighthearted love story. The clichés of both the slasher and rom-com genres prevent Heart Eyes from hitting a bullseye in that respect, but it still lands close enough to the center to be a very entertaining ride from start to finish.
What Is ‘Heart Eyes’ About?

Ally (Olivia Holt) is a down-on-her-luck advertising exec who is dreading the upcoming Valentine’s Day season since breaking up with the man of her dreams. However, she could have another chance at love when she has a meet-cute with her co-worker, Jay (Mason Gooding), whose bold and cavalier personality might just be turning into charming and charismatic. Before either member of this unlikely couple gets the chance to decide if the other is the one, they have to face one major problem. They need to fight for survival while being relentlessly pursued by the Heart Eyes Killer, who has been targeting and terrorizing unsuspecting couples every Valentine’s Day for the last two years.
Heart Eyes is about 70% comedy and 30% horror, which is a formula that two of the film’s writers, Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon, have found tremendous success in, having previously penned Freaky. Where that movie was an obvious parody of Freaky Friday with a horror twist, Heart Eyes feels like a wonderfully twisted combination of Scream and When Harry Met Sally. Ally and Jay do not start out as a power couple, with Ally choosing to bury herself in her work while Jay has a more go-with-the-flow kind of attitude. They’re opposites, and in true rom-com fashion, opposites attract.
Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding are both perfectly cast in the lead roles of Heart Eyes, especially since both of them have past experience in the slasher world, with Holt having previously starred in Totally Killer and Gooding appearing in the most recent Scream films. Not only are both of them talented performers in their own right, but they also have some excellent chemistry with one another. Whether they’re running for their lives or participating in a budding romance, Holt and Gooding are an absolutely dynamite combination here. The supporting cast also gets some brief moments to shine, with some particular highlights being Jordana Brewster and Devon Sawa as a pair of problematic detectives.
‘Heart Eyes’ Horror Elements Coast While Its Comedic Elements Soar

Image via Sony Pictures

Josh Ruben’s skills as a comedian (particularly an improvisational one) feel right at home in Heart Eyes. The dialogue is snappy, and the jokes feel like they’re coming a mile a minute, even when brutal holiday-themed kills are being perpetrated. Not every joke sticks the landing, such as a very on-the-nose Fast & Furious reference, but overall, Heart Eyes is a consistently funny and fast-paced film. Even the very glossy, almost manufactured visuals of Heart Eyes add to the film’s humor. At first, the shiny clean aesthetic almost seems like an excuse to indulge Sony’s obsession with green screens, but in practice, it feels like another layer to the movie’s satirization of Hallmark-style romance films.

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The holiday-themed slasher stars horror vets Mason Gooding and Devon Sawa.

The horror elements aren’t quite as strong by comparison, though they are far from awful. The Heart Eyes Killer themself is somewhat hit-and-miss as a silent horror antagonist, as their gleeful killing sprees are almost always done in complete silence and slow walking, which we’ve only seen eight billion times by now. Still, there are some nice subtle differences in the killer’s design, such as their signature spectacles functioning as night-vision goggles and their handy Cupid-esque crossbow. Heart Eyes may not move the needle in the same way that Ghostface and Art the Clown do, but the killer still gets the job done.
That job really gets done with some decently fun and inventive kills, which also take advantage of the film’s tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. It takes a little while to get to the good ones, but things really ramp up in a great way during a stand-out sequence at a drive-in movie, where Heart Eyes takes the gloves off to deliver some rock-solid horror goodness. The bulk of the other sequences aren’t revolutionary, but they do enough to keep the thrilling momentum that you’d expect from a comedic slasher.
‘Heart Eyes’ Works Best When it Steps Out of ‘Scream’s Shadow

Image by Jefferson Chacon

If it wasn’t apparent already, Heart Eyes borrows heavily from the likes of Scream, even down to featuring some tepid idolatry of the Heart Eyes Killer that doesn’t feel nearly as profound as it could have. Most of the rom-com elements give the film enough of an identity to stand out, but the main thing that Heart Eyes struggles to emulate from Scream is a strong mystery story. Where just about all the Scream films have a brilliant “whodunit” aspect to them, Heart Eyes’s narrative is fairly predictable. There’s a point in Heart Eyes when the film almost seems to do something fairly unique with its big killer reveal. Sadly, the movie then sinks back into familiar territory in a climax that struggles quite a bit. The movie’s grand finale can be guessed almost beat-for-beat and the ultimate twist is one that audiences, whether it’s filled with hardcore horror enthusiasts or not, will see coming from a mile away.
That being said, when the final kill rolls onto the screen, Heart Eyes’s plot issues and reliance on clichés start to fade away. That’s because the two leads are so charming, the jokes are genuinely funny, and the kills are delightfully gorey. Heart Eyes succeeds in being the first big crowd-pleasing horror flick of the year. It’s certainly one that couples would probably enjoy watching on Valentine’s Day, as long as you’re not too queasy at the sight of blood or relationship commitments.
Heart Eyes slashes into theaters on Friday, February 7, 2025.

Heart Eyes

Heart Eyes may not move the arrow too much for horror fans looking for something new, but it does have enough fun kills and even funnier moments to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Release Date

February 7, 2025

Director

Josh Ruben

Writers

Michael Kennedy, Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon

Pros & Cons

Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding are a practically perfect onscreen couple.
Some fun kills that greatly balance humor and horror.
Josh Ruben shows a real knack for visual comedy.

The central mystery and plot is fairly predictable.
Too reliant on existing horror cliches.