The horror genre has had a whole host of iconic movie slashers over the years, from Michael Myers to Jason Voorhees, but while Heart Eyes seemed poised to add to their ranks, the movie wastes much of its potential in a bizarre third act. Going into Heart Eyes, I wasn’t totally sure what to expect, but the concept seemed promising: a Valentine’s Day-set horror movie with a killer that goes by Heart Eyes and has a chillingly perfect mask to match the name. What it turned out to be was more of a romantic comedy with brutal, bloody kills.

Directed by Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within) from a script by Philip Murphy (Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy (Freaky), Heart Eyes follows Ally (Olivia Holt), who has a meet-cute with Jay (Mason Gooding) at a coffee shop on Valentine’s Day morning. It turns out Jay is the fixer that Ally’s boss brought in to fix a mᴀssive mistake she made, and she begrudgingly agrees to a dinner date to discuss a fix to the problem. When Ally ropes Jay into posing as her boyfriend in front of her ex, the two become the unwitting targets of Heart Eyes.

The movie proceeds to try to balance Ally and Jay’s love story with the standard conventions of slasher movies — jump scares, chase scenes through abandoned locations, and plenty of blood and gore. All the while, the killer is being sought by two Seattle police detectives, who are played by Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster and have the surnames Hobbs and Shaw, which seems to have been included for the sole purpose of making a joke about the Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham movie. Somehow, Heart Eyes manages to get even more eye-rollingly ridiculous from there.

Heart Eyes Has An Inventive Premise, But Little Else

I’m Disappointed By How The Movie Squanders Its Potential

After watching Heart Eyes, I got the sense that the writers came up with the premise for the killer first and tried to figure out an interesting story behind the mask second. That story is where the movie truly lost me. The horror genre is arguably more known for the characters behind the masks of its killers than for the brutal murders they commit. Sometimes, these characters are mindless killing machines, like Michael Myers in Halloween, or they’re revealed to be the main character’s boyfriend and his best friend, like Billy Loomis and Stu Macher in Scream.

The important thing about these characters is that they’re compelling, perhaps even more compelling than the final girl they’re trying to kill. In Heart Eyes, the reveal of the killer behind the mask is not only anticlimactic but, frankly, disappointing and strange. It’s a twist where, once revealed, you can easily see the breadcrumbs laid by the writers and director, but that doesn’t make it interesting. The reveal isn’t very well-thought-out. It’s like the writers needed to have a face and a reason behind the mask and they came up with something good enough and called it a day.

As a result, I can’t imagine Heart Eyes will make it into the pantheon of beloved and iconic horror movie slashers, which is a shame, because it had the potential to get there. Unfortunately, it feels like all the character development the movie took the time for was put into Ally and Jay, which would make sense if this was solely a rom-com. Since it’s a horror movie, though, I would’ve liked to know a little bit more about Heart Eyes.

Heart Eyes’ Leads Are Solid & The Kills Are Mostly Fun

The Slasher Movie Is Appropriately Bloody

For what it’s worth, Holt and Gooding have a great deal of chemistry, and I was genuinely invested in their love story and worried that it would be cut short by the killer. Their romance is a little offbeat for a typical rom-com, so don’t expect something along the lines of Crazy Rich Asians or Anyone But You with some added horror movie elements, but it’s pretty close, which is almost enjoyable. Heart Eyes actually leans much more heavily into its romance than its horror and if the movie had struck a more even balance it might’ve been more successful.

That said, I don’t want to underplay the amount of blood and gore in the movie. As someone who’s pretty squeamish — even after decades of watching and enjoying horror — there were a couple of kills that made me wince. I have to applaud the writers and director for some of the more inventive kills, and for giving Heart Eyes an array of weapons, rather than just one, which helped to differentiate the killer from other horror movie slashers and make for more unique murders.

All in all, Heart Eyes is a fine horror movie. It has a fun and unique idea, and the first act of the movie is very strong, but Heart Eyes loses its way and culminates in a middling-to-bad third act that squanders all the potential of the premise and beginning. There’s little reason to catch this one in theaters beyond the fact that it’s tied to Valentine’s Day, and if you’re going to watch it at all, make sure you’re a fan of both rom-coms and horror movies. Despite its potential, I can certainly say that Heart Eyes didn’t have me making heart eyes at it.

Heart Eyes is rated R for strong violence and gore, language and some Sєxual content.