Heart Eyes(2025)(Review) - Gruesome Gazette

It can be a truly magical thing when love and blood are both simultaneously in the air. While we seem to have classic horror movies that cover every major holiday, there’s always room for new additions. So even though I’m over a month late on this, I’d like to discuss the new Valentine’s themed horror film, ‘Heart Eyes’.

For the last few years, on Valentine’s Day, there’s been terror caused by a masked killer simply known as The Heart Eyes Killer. While their identity is unknown, there are witness reports and police sketches that illustrate a mask with light-up hearts over their eyes, and they solely are taking out romantic couples. And things are further complicated by the fact that every year, the killer chooses a new city to target. Meaning nobody knows where they will strike until it’s already too late.

This time around, we are following a day in the life of Ally, a marketing representative for a diamond company in Seattle whose latest pitch – based around the idea of “til death do us part” – is a major flop. Her audience, boss, and co-workers are all not only disappointed in her new commercial she made, they are downright disgusted. So, her boss flies in a legendary consultant named Jay, whose here to work with Ally to fix her campaign. What ensues initially is a meet-cute between the two which has a bit of romantic chemistry, except Ally is very anti-love and pushes Jay away. But as the night goes on and the two go out for a work-dinner, Jay ends up hurting himself and goes into Ally’s apartment to bandage his wounds, where we find out the Heart Eyes killer is waiting for them.

Mistaking the two leads as a couple, the killer pursues them across the city, slaying every couple in their path. The film does a very good job at balancing this rom-com with good doses of gore. It begins with a very solid cold-open that really establishes the sarcastic tone, the killer’s ruthlessness, and the violence we can expect to see.

The humor works really well, the lead characters are fun to root for, the violence is proper nasty without going too hard, and there are some fun cameos. The pacing is solid, and the script is rather good. There are some attempts at twists that may not be as successful as it is in other films, but as a whole this is an effective holiday horror film. It’s written by Christopher Landon, Michael Kennedy, and Phillip Murphy, and directed by Josh Ruben – with what I believe is his best film to date.

He’s no Harry Warden, but he’s a welcome addition to the holiday canon.

3.5/5
“Heart Eyes” is available to rent & purchase on VOD.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra