Close my mouth.
Just a few hours – I repeat, hours – after writing that Hollywood never releases a classic romantic movie on Valentine’s Day, I watch a movie that proves me wrong. It just happens to be an ultraviolent slasher. Touché, Hollywood. You win this round.
Then again with a movie as good as Josh Ruben’s “heart eyes”, everyone is a winner. Ruben is the director of the brilliant 2021 horror comedy werewolves within, splits down the best movie ever adapted from a video game. It is no surprise that his follow -up would do the same for another overwhelming sub -genre. “Heart Eyes” raises the bar for emoji movies, which sounds like weak praise since “The emoji movie” forgot to install a bar, but it’s still true.
Over the past two years, a serial killer in a mask that looks like “heart eyes” -emoji on a Valentine’s Day and killed spree, brutally slaughtered adorable couples across the country. This year, Heart Eyes has put its sights on Seattle, where a delightful clumsy advertising manager named Ally (Olivia Holt, “Totally Killer”) has just met cute with his damn and emotionally available new workplace rival, Jay (Mason Gooding, “Scream VI” ). Ally still comes over his ex-boyfriend and has a Randy Comic Relief Best Friend, Monica (Gigi Zumbado), which takes her for old-fashioned shopping monts to cheer on her.
Oh, but Ally and Jay have the world’s worst first date, and culminate with the sudden look of her ex. To make him jealous, she kisses Jay, who kisses her back, who attracts the attention of heart eyes, who continues to chase them over the city and try to kill them in romantic places such as a botanical garden, a merry-go-round and a drive-in Cinema who plays “His girl Friday.”
Fans of Ruben’s previous works know two things: he loves horror movies and he loves love. “Werewolves within” and “heart eyes” are both horror movies that interrupt a heartwarming love story, where the joints absolutely have to end up together or I swear to God I will scream. Some genre mash-ups fall into the trap of benefiting a genre more than the other, sometimes much more, but “heart eyes” is a engrossing and really fun romantic comedy with and without all murders. That it is a formal Rom-Com is all part of the charm.
Romantic comedies, just like slashers, are about giving the audience exactly the same thing, over and over again, but different. The script for “Heart Eyes” credit to Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy-follow the conventions for the Rom-Com genre in every conceivable way, but it knows what makes these tropes popular and how to make them sing. If you go to “heart eyes” in the hope of a good old-fashioned rom-com you get one. With a scene where someone’s face is viscerally clicked by a masquerade.
If you go to “heart eyes” in the hope of a good old -fashioned slasher, you mostly get it too. The formulas do not match perfectly, and “Heart Eyes” jumps largely on the part where the killer usually slaughter through the supporting role for two whole actions, until the actual heroes calculate the type of movie they are in. In a Rom-Com If the heroes/love interests are always our anchor, so when heart eyes start attacking allies and Jay, it is like the film moves directly to the pulse-pound Klimaks, then backtracks a bit and ramps up again. And then again for good dimensions.
Of course, no slasher movie is complete without memorable murders, and “heart eyes” murder many, memorable. And yet Ruben manly manages to take the brutal murders and make them feel part of the couple with the film’s otherwise increased, Chintzy comedy Vibe. It is really rough to look at someone knife -cut through the mouth with a tire iron. It is somehow sweet to look at two erroneous Rom-com, Bicker leads to remove it, all while the like-open MAW and dead, penetrating eyes absorb the entire silver screen. Priorities, people! Priorities!
Speaking of priorities: “Heart Eyes” co -stars Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster as Detective Hobbs and Shaw, and yes, they make that joke, and yes, Jordana Brewster is in “Fast and Furious” films. So according to the rules “Last Action Hero” this means in the “Heart Eyes” universities that someone else plays Vin Diesel’s sister in that franchise. It was probably another ‘when the world turns’ students. Probably Emmy Rossum. But maybe no one cares about it except me. Anyway, I lose.
“Heart Eyes” seems to be intended to become a Valentine’s Favorite, the rare horror movie with a large and charming love story, and even the rare romantic comedy with a large and wild serial killer. So once again I admit it. I was wrong. Sometimes Hollywood releases a classic Valentine’s day movie in February. Just not usually.
