‘Heart Eyes’ Review – No Love Lost For Muddled Slasher Affair

From the outside looking in, Heart Eyes seems like a good idea. A holiday-themed horror movie (of which there are plenty,) presenting a fresh take on the genre with thematic and cosmetic ties to the day of love. Red hearts, red blood, and Valentine’s Day jokes galore. And while all that is here, the final product feels far less cohesive, and turns out much less moving, than the parts that make it up. Heart Eyes is a middle-of-the-road, muddled letdown.

Though it isn’t all bad, especially towards the beginning. The film opens cold on a killer (literally) setup scene. It looks good, hits hard and laughs heartily. It isn’t long afterward that our leads are introduced, played in intertwined fashion by Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding. Their chemistry is downright contagious and, in spite of their own characters at times, they come together to represent the best part of this film. As the two of them navigate their semi-romantic feelings toward one another, any inward exploration is halted by the Heart Eyes killer rampaging in their city on V-day. The film spends a lot of time early digging into this killer as a repeated threat and, even if it becomes a little overbearing, the setup is enjoyable.

Really, the first two-thirds or so of Heart Eyes works well enough. The film paces bouts of action appropriately between periodic instances of character growth. To boot, there are more than a few clever set pieces and bits of scenery to chew on along the way. It’s the last act where this thing falls apart, and unfortunately, it does so miserably.

Heart Eyes goes from a respectable, self-aware slasher to complete and utter stolen valor in the genre in a matter of mere moments. What’s worse, the film borrows from others that aren’t that great on their own. The most obvious trace of influence here comes via the Scream franchise, though particularly the post-Wes entries. It’s a shallow brand of meta-horror that sacrifices a layered story for plain shock value.

Without spoiling anything, a film revealing a mystery in a way that you’d have had little to no reason to expect such a revelation most often doesn’t work. Scream VI suffered the same issue, and Heart Eyes, identically, abandons its audience right when they should be most involved. It’s a massive misstep at the height of the film’s climax. Further, the film’s already shaky dialogue falls off a cliff. You move from tongue-in-cheek nods and one-liners to brutal, oblivious, overused written tropes that squeeze every ounce of singularity from a final act that desperately needed it.

It’s an ending so far removed from the rest of the film that it retroactively makes what came before it worse. All sense of pace and momentum is betrayed at the finish line for head-scratching nonsensicality in the storytelling department. The only thing that works for the film as it rounds the last corner is the overall visual aesthetic that it employs, which, thankfully, remains a consistent highlight the entire way through. The camera moves often enough, and sharp colors and well done effects reign solid and supreme in a palette worth commending. It’s a movie that looks good through and through.

But you can’t get by on looks alone, and when it matters most, Heart Eyes flatlines. There simply exists an odd insistence in the slasher genre as it currently stands to go above and beyond in ensuring the audience loses the film’s trail; the mystery isn’t clever, it’s just downright unsolvable. What’s the point of a mask if you barely know the person beneath it?

Heart Eyes is currently playing in theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures.