Heart Eyes (2025) review

Dir. Josh Ruben

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Heart Eyes is as even-handed as any horror-comedy amalgam in recent years. From the jump, it’s clear that it wants to develop its central relationship, double-down on some romantic beats, and rack up a sizable body-count, all in a tight 90-minutes. Furthermore, for as much as it wants to send-up tropes of romance movies, it doesn’t feel patronizing nor so plagued by its own lack of originality that it can’t help but follow convention while making fun of it.

A lion’s weight of its success is thanks to the people behind it. The film was directed by Josh Ruben, a CollegeHumor alum, and co-written by Christopher Landon, whose Happy Death Day series helped greatly revitalize the genre when supernatural entities and sequels were clogging the pipeline. Maybe you remember a little movie called They Came Together, starring Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, a low-key absurdist satire on romance movies. There’s a lot of the same spirit in Heart Eyes, which makes it appropriately romantic for Valentine’s Day, but also just brutal enough to be appreciated by those who like the color red thanks to bloodshed.

After a rock-solid opening scene in which a gruesome triple-murder takes place during a couple’s proposal at a vineyard — scored to “Amazed” by Lonestar of all ballads — the story settles in on Ally (Olivia Holt), a young marketing executive, who spends her downtime social media stalking her ex-boyfriend. It would be sad if it wasn’t so pitiful, so much so that even her motormouthed best friend Monica (a wickedly funny Gigi Zumbado) can’t get through to her. Ally’s latest marketing campaign, a jewelry ad centered on couples dying, is poorly timed thanks to a serial killer known as the “Heart Eyes Killer” resurfacing in her city of Seattle. “HEK,” as he’s known, has been popping up the last couple years around Valentine’s Day to viciously murder couples in cold blood.

Enter Jay (Mason Gooding), with whom Ally meets cute/awkward at a coffeeshop early in the movie. He just so happens to be the freelance fixer (aka “consumer cupid”) hired to repair her ad-campaign to salvage the brand’s reputation. The two go on a sorta-date in order to talk ideas for the new approach, but Ally’s rude judgements effectively push him away. Just when the two are about to go their separate ways, the Heart Eyes Killer finds them and tries to snuff them out with his bow-and-arrow. The two have almost no choice but to stick together, and eventually cross paths with Zeke Hobbs (Devon Sawa) and Jeanine Shaw (Jordana Brewster), two goofball detectives hot on the killer’s trail.

The key word for Heart Eyes‘ success is “balance.” The trio of writers, Landon, Phillip Murphy, and Michael Kennedy, intertwine the contrasting tones of sweet romance and ghastly slasher kills in a way that makes us laugh and squirm. Jokes and jump-scares exist in a world together, often in the same scene, and red herrings run amok keep us guessing the killer’s identity. The script even goes as far as to evoke rom-com tropes such as a glow-up montage and a climactic race to the airport, all cast with a suspenseful sheen.

Ruben also keeps the settings interesting, and therein keeps you guessing as to what lies ahead. Consider the aforementioned vineyard-set opening, which turns the location of a cutesy, cringey marriage proposal into a playground of violence. It effectively sets the tone for Heart Eyes, a movie that doesn’t shy away from conjuring up brutal ways to maim its victims and show the carnage in glorious detail. Later, the film transports us to a botanical garden, and then a merry-go-round, making great use of settings typical for romance movies only capturing them with increased darkness, fog, and the lurking presence of a killer with red, LED heart-shaped eyes.

Even with all the running around, Holt, who looks like a young Julia Stiles, and Gooding strike up notable chemistry. She practically sprays herself with relationship repellant. He is a hopeless romantic with a rare suaveness that doesn’t come across as arrogance. The two are ideal heroes you want to see succeed, which also goes a long way in keeping Heart Eyes buoyant.

Ruben and cinematographer Stephen Murphy work hand-in-hand in giving the kills a surprising amount of personality. A tire-iron blasts a hole through the skull of a victim, providing an entry point for Ruben to capture Ally’s terrified reaction. When the two treat us to the killer’s perspective, we see the world through infrared colors brought on by the killer’s electric, glow-in-the-dark eyes. It’s these dynamic details that show the added care and attention put into a movie that effectively pulls double-duty as a romance and a slasher, nailing both formulas with a refreshing, warranted confidence.

Starring: Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Gigi Zumbado, Michaela Watkins, Devon Sawa, and Jordana Brewster. Directed by: Josh Ruben.