Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Heart Eyes (2025)

While Heart Eyes has originality and ingenuity to spare, the slasher rom-com still includes two savvy nods to the Scream movies in its killer ending. The twist ending of Heart Eyes is a doozy. While viewers might have potentially guessed that Jordana Brewster’s overly familiar Detective Jeanette Shaw was one of the killers, it was hard to work out that she was working with the barely-glimpsed background character David. Meanwhile, the revelation that the pair had a third accomplice in their twisted murderous “Throuple” made the ending impossible to predict.

Ever since Heart Eyes screenwriter Christopher Landon’s Happy Death Day became a hit in 2017, killer idenтιтy reveals like Heart Eyes’ ending have become an increasingly common sight. Happy Death Day 2 U, There’s Someone Inside Your House, Thanksgiving, Totally Killer, It’s A Wonderful Knife, and Heart Eyes all end with the heroes unmasking and defeating the killers, as Landon’s blend of murder mystery and slasher tropes proved influential in the years after Happy Death Day’s success. However, there is an earlier franchise that mixed slashers with murder mysteries, and Heart Eyes acknowledges its debt to the series twice.

Heart Eyes’ Ending Uses Guns Like The Scream Movies

The Scream Series Famously Feature Guns In Their Endings

The Scream movies all mix classic slasher kills with a murder mystery setup, as the characters try to work out who the killer is while also attempting to avoid Ghostface’s blade. The Scream franchise is the most iconic example of a slasher series with no fixed antagonist as, unlike the killers from the Halloween, Nightmare On Elm Street, Child’s Play, Leprechaun, and Candyman franchises, Ghostface’s idenтιтy changes with each movie. Fittingly, Heart Eyes borrows some recognizable motifs from the Scream movies in its ending.

While most of director Josh Ruben’s Heart Eyes sees the тιтular killer use a crossbow and bladed weapons to attack his victims, the climax of Heart Eyes finally sees the heroes and the villains alike using guns instead. Traditionally, the Scream movies took this approach too, with the killers and heroines using guns in the ending but not earlier in the story. Scream VI’s atypical bodega sequence aside, in earlier franchise outings, the approach resulted in a punchy immediacy missing from most slasher endings. The introduction of guns is also more realistic thanks to the non-supernatural villains of these movies.

Heart Eyes’ Multiple Killers Are Borrowed From The Scream Series

Heart Eyes Adds An Ingenious Twist To This Setup

The villains of the Scream movies are ordinary people, like the cast of characters in Heart Eyes. As such, it seems unlikely that they would embark on a killing spree without carrying a gun for protection. This is why the use of guns in the climax of the Scream movies feels believable and terrifyingly tense, something Heart Eyes replicates in its ending. Ironically, none of the killers in Heart Eyes are ultimately killed with these guns, as the slasher movie metes out much nastier, more elaborate deaths for them.

Nonetheless, the end of Heart Eyes acknowledges the Scream franchise’s influence on the slasher sub-genre by conceding that its ending would feel outdated and unrealistic without guns. Meanwhile, the movie’s multiple killers also feel like a nod to the Scream series. In traditional slasher franchises like the Halloween movies and the Friday the 13th series, nigh-indestructible killers like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers can seemingly teleport from one location to another off-screen between killing victims. The more grounded Scream movies get around the impossible geography of slasher movies by revealing two or more killers working together.

Heart Eyes’ Scream Nods Make Sense For The Horror-Comedy

Heart Eyes Writer Christopher Landon Was Originally Set To Direct Scream 7

The Scream movies usually feature multiple killers like Heart Eyes, although Ruben’s 2025 slasher offers a new spin on this trope. Instead of two killers working together, the killers in Heart Eyes are a throuple consisting of Jeanette, David, and their super fan. This nod to the Scream series is particularly inventive, as Scream VI was the first movie in the series to feature three killers instead of two (or, in the case of Scream 3, one). It makes sense that Heart Eyes features so many nods to the Scream movies, thanks to its screenwriter’s recent screen CV.

Heart Eyes screenwriter Christopher Landon was lined up to direct Scream 7 before its original stars Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega dropped out, and he was replaced by Kevin Williamson. Meanwhile, Heart Eyes star Mason Gooding has major supporting roles in Scream 2022 and Scream VI, with his character becoming Ortega’s love interest in Scream VI. As such, it should come as no surprise that Heart Eyes featured so many affectionate nods to the Scream series with its multiple killers and the climax’s reliance on guns, otherwise a rarity in slasher cinema.