Heart Eyes

Genre-smashing is what keeps movies invigorating and entertaining. Taking elements normally found in one genre and mixing them with the tropes of another helps breathe a little life into an otherwise routine, played-out genre. We’ve seen Horror/Comedy hybrids before - films that are scary but intentionally funny or have a dry sense of humor. We’ve seen Romantic Horror films many times where our hero may have a personal bond with the central monster. We don’t often see too many Horror Romantic Comedies, though. Josh Ruben’s wily Heart Eyes is an entertaining smash-up of your average cute and adorable Romantic Comedy deftly intertwined with the classic masked Slasher Horror flick. 

Leading our would-be lovebirds are Olivia Holt as Ally McCabe and Mason Gooding as Jay Simmonds. After the pair painfully collides at a coffee shop for your absurd meet cute moment, they quickly find themselves as unexpected colleagues. As the lead marketing brain for an upscale jewelry chain, Ally completely botched the Valentine’s Day campaign. Now, she’s forced to team up with Mason as the on-call hot-shot ad man to salvage the holiday shopping thrust. Unfortunately, the country is in the grips of the murderous Heart Eyes Killer who spans the country, dispatching unsuspecting lovebirds on their romantic holiday. So just when Ally and Mason are trying to tamp down their obvious attraction with one another and get some work done, a masked killer is out for blood, and they’re his next target. 

Right out front, Heart Eyes doesn’t break new ground, it’s not wholly original, and it’s more than a little preposterous right down to the big whodonit reveal of the killer. This film isn’t about breaking new ground so much as remixing tired old elements of bland romantic comedies and slasher flicks into something that's wildly entertaining. The script from Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy is hyper self-aware and leans into the absurdity. This is a genre hybrid that knows its cinematic genealogy and exploits those expectations for our pleasure with some creative and hilarious kills. Similar to his time on Werewolves Within, director Josh Ruben gives the film a crafty sense of suspense and expectation while letting the audience actually get to know and enjoy our two leads. 

I also enjoyed that this cast knew their assignments. Olivia Holt is lovely as the damsel and our standard romantic lead but also stands tall as an effective final girl. Mason Gooding is no stranger to horror after the previous two Scream installments, and he carries that sort of “been down that road” swagger and charm to the role. And the film is populated with a supporting cast of Rom-Com character mainstays, including Gigi Zumbado as the brash best friend and Michaela Watkins as the boss. On the horror side, we have the inspired pairing of Horror stars Jordana Brewster and Devon Sawa as Seattle’s finest homicide detectives on the trail of the Heart Eyes Killer.

If I have a complaint about the film, it's the big last act reveal of the Heart Eyes Killer. The reveal of the identity is a tough case of "who else is left?" rather than a big surprise. That's always the tough balance of a whodunit like this where the killer could quite easily be anyone, so it all falls to who isn't dead yet. I had some thoughts about who the killer could/should have been that would have been clever/funny. Given how the rest of the sequence plays with one hell of a finale fountain of viscera, I'll let that identity reveal gripe slide. 

After catching Heart Eyes in the theater with a packed house all hooting and hollering at the flick, I admittedly was worried that it might not hold up with repeat viewings. It certainly has a little bit of a "one and done" flavor to it. But, I was happy to see that, on the second round, it was still a good ride. Now, it might not be one that I yank off the shelf every February, but it’s a worthwhile revisit. At the end of the day, Heart Eyes offers a fun new spin on some pretty tired old tropes. We have two attractive leads otherwise ripe for an obnoxious romantic comedy stuck in a rip-roaring slasher film with some particularly gnarly kill scenes. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
Heart Eyes rides onto Blu-ray with a single-disc Blu-ray + Digital release from Sony. Not sure why this one got passed over for a 4K disc release, but I’d imagine that it might drop closer to Halloween or next Valentine’s Day, similar to what happened with Sony’s other holiday-themed horror flick, Thanksgiving. The film is pressed on a Region Free BD50 disc and housed in a standard case. My review copy did not include a slipcover. The disc loads to a slew of horror trailers before arriving at a static image main menu with basic navigation options.

Heart Eyes takes a respectable stab at 1080p Blu-ray for this initial release. Overall, this is a nice and tight presentation. Fine details are appreciable and clear. A lot of the film has a soft romantic pastiche to it, especially during daylight time, but facial features, clothing patterns, the killer’s mask, and the copious amounts of gore look great. A lot of the film takes place at night and in dark locations, so there’s a lot of moody, shadowy atmosphere. Overall, these moments looked pretty good, but in a few shots, I felt like the lighting and shadowing gradience was leading to some blockiness and didn’t quite punch home. I felt this was most apparent during the drive-in movie sequence between car lights and the light of the projector and the screen. Not a huge concern, not something that’ll take you out of the moment necessarily, but it was something I saw here that I don’t recall seeing in theaters. Colors are appropriately romantic, lots of pinks, plenty of red, lots of crimson for all of the blood and viscera. It's a fine Blu-ray, but I’m curious to see what a 4K transfer with HDR could do for it.

On the audio side, the film comes home with a rambunctious DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. The fun part of the film’s Romantic Comedy Slasher dynamic is how the sound mix reflects that scheme. When it’s romantic, the score is appropriately light and nauseatingly cute. When it’s a horror film, it’s bass-heavy and intense. Similarly, the music cues for the meet-cute or the quintessential shopping spree follow that track. The surround impact really picks up the pace during the horror scenes, letting all of the squishy bits have their due. Basically, the opening scene of the two lovebirds going for the obnoxious Insta-perfect proposal shows you everything you’re going to get for the next hour. The dialog is clear and clean without issue. The levels are spot on. The imaging is nicely balanced, so when the film calls for a certain level of intense immersion, it delivers.

On the bonus features side of the coin, we don’t have a lot of exciting content for Heart Eyes, but what we do get is decent. Most of the supplementary content, the making-of and gag reel, covers the tried and true basics in a very quick fashion. The deleted scenes are some interesting cut moments, but you can see they were likely removed for pace and time. The highlight of the pack is the commentary from director Josh Ruben, which is detailed and very entertaining. It’s clear he had a fun time making the flick and is very proud of his work. 

• Audio Commentary featuring Josh Ruben
• Murders and Meet Cutes: The Making of Heart Eyes (HD 7:53)
• Gag Reel (HD 2:43)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 4:48 Total)
• Monica’s Pep Talk
• Ally Finds Hobbs
• Ally and Jay Find Shaw
• Meet Arthur
• Monica & Crystal Toast

In the end, Heart Eyes probably isn’t going to go down in history as a genre classic, but it’s still a damned fun film. It’s a clever genre skewer hybridizing numerous tropes and cliches into a damned funny and wildly gnarly entertaining Romantic Comedy Horror flick. I had a blast with it in theaters, and it still holds up on home video. I would have loved to see a Heart Eyes 4K disc, but as a Blu-ray-only edition (so far), this disc is a strong option for fans. The A/V presentation delivers, and the bonus features package has some good bits to it, too. Two times through (well, three if you count the commentary), I enjoyed Heart Eyes more than I expected, and glad to have it on the shelf. Recommended