Movie review
It could have been a match made in hell: a romantic comedy and a slasher.
But while “Heart Eyes” — a clever mashup of the two popcorn-movie genres hitting theaters one week before Valentine’s Day — isn’t heavenly stuff, it should make for a fun date night thanks to its makers prioritizing laughs over scares.
More of both would have been welcome in this flick from director Josh Ruben, working from a script by Phillip Murphy (“Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard”) that underwent a rewrite by “Happy Death Day” director Christopher Landon and his “Freaky” co-writer, Michael Kennedy.
Their collective work owes a lot to the “Scream” franchise, including its tone, its fun-and-murderous prologue and its male lead, Mason Gooding. (It’s surely no coincidence that a few of the movie’s producers are tied to the reboot “Scream” installments of the past several years.)
Before meeting Gooding’s hopeless romantic Jay Simmonds, we are introduced to Olivia Holt’s Ally McCabe, a jaded Seattle 20-something.
Ally’s advertising campaign for a jewelry line, based on the phrase “til death do us part,” is dead on arrival now that the masked, couples-hating Heart Eyes Killer, aka “HEK,” has arrived in Seattle for this year’s Valentine’s Day slayings after bloody-successful endeavors in Boston and Philadelphia. With the big day upon them, Ally’s eccentric boss (an over-the-top Michaela Watkins) has brought in top freelancer Jay to remedy the situation.
Ally and Jay already have had a meet-cute before work at a coffee place, where they’d ordered the same, fairly specific drink and then flirted, awkwardly, before going on their seemingly separate ways. Now, of course, Ally feels professionally threatened by Jay and is resistant when he makes them a dinner reservation so they can conjure a campaign idea.
Fun friend Monica (Gigi Zumbado) insists to Ally she’s going on a date and makes her try on a bunch of outfits at a store, but Ally decides to keep things work-appropriate in terms of attire.
Of course, Jay HAS booked a VERY romantic spot ON Valentine’s Day evening. The night begins to fall apart, but when Ally sees her ex, whom she’s been stalking on social media, and his new girlfriend outside the restaurant, she impulsively kisses Jay to make a big show.
That slice of emotional theater is convincing enough for a watching Heart Eyes, who zeros in on Ally and Jay for his next victims.
From there, the not-couple tries to stay alive while also developing chemistry together. (In the film’s production notes, Murphy says he had the idea for the story after a bad first date, wondering what might have happened that could have led to a stronger connection and landing on the thought of a masked killer chasing them.)
“Heart Eyes” is generally entertaining from that aforementioned prologue — in which a young couple visiting a winery for a highly staged engagement runs afoul of Heart Eyes, as does their photographer — through its semi-messy climactic sequence in which all is revealed.
Ruben (“Scare Me,” “Werewolves Within”) and his collaborators delight in the humorous side of gore, presenting myriad killings absurd enough to generate laughs. You’ll rarely be genuinely scared.
“Heart Eyes” boasts other funny moments, too, but you can’t help but wonder if a longer development runway for the project could have led to more. (The production notes say Ruben’s pitch for his approach on the project to Spyglass Media Group, one of the companies behind the movie, occurred on Valentine’s Day last year.) For example, “Heart Eyes” gets halfway to a running joke involving HEK seeing Ally and Jay in another seemingly romantic situation, further cementing that they should be a target while frustrating them, but doesn’t do anything more with that.
Also, a pair of detectives, Devon Sawa’s Zeke Hobbs and Jordana Brewster’s Jeanine Shaw — their last names an alluded-to-in-the-movie reference to the “Fast and Furious” franchise, of which Brewster long has been a part — add little to the goings-on.
More importantly, though, it’s pleasurable enough to spend time with Ally and Jay, thanks largely to Holt (“Cruel Summer,” “Totally Killer”) and Gooding (“Y2K,” “Scream VI”).
As with the main couple in almost any rom-com, these two should be together, but as obstacles that, however temporarily, could keep them apart go, being pursued by a serial killer wearing a mask with glowing heart-shaped cutouts for the eyes is pretty good.
Overall, “Heart Eyes” has a winning formula, but maybe don’t expect it to sweep you off your feet.