REVIEW: “Heart Eyes” is a Decent Combination of Suspense and Comedy, but Nothing Special
Heart Eyes Killer also known as HEK from the movie “Heart Eyes”(variety.com).
February 23, 2025
Zachary Myers, Editor
What is a normal way for someone to spend a day during the week of Valentine’s Day? Most would be with their significant other but for a single man like myself, I decided to take a different route: watch a Valentine’s Day-themed horror movie. “Heart Eyes” was released on Friday, February 7 and stars Olivia Holt as Ally and notable Scream franchise actor Mason Gooding as Jay.
On Valentine’s Day every year, a serial killer only known as the “Heart Eyes Killer” or “HEK” stalks and brutally kills couples in intimate scenarios. He is very random in the locations he chooses, going from Boston to Philadelphia and now he travels across the country to Seattle where he murders a couple, a cameraman, and a security officer at a winery. The officers on the scene quickly identify the murders as a case of “HEK” and assign detectives Hobbs (played by Devon Sawa) and Detective Shaw (played by Jordana Brewster). Back to our main characters, Ally works as a marketing executive who is ironically tasked with producing a Valentine ‘s-themed advertisement, which does not go over well with her boss (played by Michaela Watkins). She eventually hires Jay to assist Ally in producing the ad, which will be the second time he and Ally will meet (they had an awkward encounter at a coffee shop). While Jay sees the partnership as an opportunity to become more than colleagues, Ally and her shoddy history with guys is wary of the idea. Eventually, the two go out to dinner to “discuss work” and eventually kiss outside of the restaurant. This is when they get stalked by Heart Eyes as he breaks into Ally’s apartment and attempts to brutally hunt down her and Jay.
Eventually, our main characters end up at an abandoned carnival, where HEK continues to chase Ally and Jay, eventually knocking the latter out nearly cold. Ally however can out-maneuver the killer, eventually escaping to a merry-go-round and knocking him off of it. Eventually, she notices police lights and points them to where HEK ran off to but no one sees him. The police, however, seem to have found the killer as they put Jay in handcuffs to question him despite Ally’s protests.
As Jay is being questioned and Ally vigorously protests his innocence, the real killer is lurking in the station, brutally killing both the desk officer and Detective Hobbs who’s investigating the case. Ally can free Jay and the pair eventually escape to a drive-in movie theater. This is where HEK goes on his greatest massacre, as in an attempt to catch the main duo, he kills any seemingly loving couple he comes across. Ally and Jay can distract HEK long enough to kill him by stabbing him with the same tool he used to kill another couple (p.s. very raunchy scene). But nothing is what it seems.
Ally eventually makes her way back to her apartment where she gets a mysterious call from an unknown number claiming to have Jay captive in an abandoned church building. When she arrives, she finds out the secret no one expected: HEK is actually a couple who have a fetish of killing couples based on the fact that St. Valentine was decapitated. They are shockingly revealed as a tech guy seen earlier in the movie and Detective Hobbs, who was investigating HEK. Both couples eventually end up one on one facing their gender rival, Jay getting the best of the tech guy immediately by stabbing him multiple times. The real fight comes between Ally and Detective Hobbs. Despite Ally inflicting damage early, Hobbs uses some great intimidation and trash talking techniques to outwit her rival. Somewhat poetically, Ally is able to pin Hobbs to the statue of St. Valentine in the church, decapitating Hobbs just like the Saint the detective modeled her heinous intentions after. A year after the horrific events, Jay and Ally go on to lead a successful campaign at the company and, poetically, go back to the same drive-in theater where the worst of their ordeal occurred.
As a newly minted horror fanatic, while this movie had some good scares and gore, it was somewhat inconsistent. The movie leaned a little too much into the rom-com side of Valentine’s Day rather than the horror side. While this may be someone’s cup of tea, a horror movie does not need this aspect. The end of the movie scene is fascinating when it is revealed that HEK is actually a fetish couple who takes pleasure in murdering couples, but it is somewhat underwhelming to see a killer’s face revealed in a horror movie. While it is a decent movie, it is not one that I would watch more than a few times a year.
