[MOVIE REVIEW] The Valentine slasher has been revived thanks to 'Heart Eyes'

Holiday Horrors are my favorite type of genre. The novelty of a slasher hunting down people on a beloved holiday like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and, in this instance Valentine’s Day, it’s going to be a bloody good time.

Thankfully, ‘Heart Eyes’ has enough campy slasher fun to earn its runtime and payoff. Josh Ruben (Scare Me, Werewolves Within) directed this new slasher with Michael Kennedy (Freaky, It’s A Wonderful Knife) and they are a deadly duo who I would love to see work together again.

The movie follows Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding), who are on the run from “HEK,” better known as Heart Eyes, who kills couples on Valentine’s Day. With the help of two detectives, Shaw (Jordana Brewster) and Hobbs (Devon Sawa) they plan to stop the killer in Seattle once and for all.

Going into this thinking it was another PG-13 slasher I was surprised to find that it’s actually R and has plenty of fun kills to boot! My personal favorite being the tire iron kill that was in the trailer but it’s so effective and gruesome that I winced during it. Also, the humor is very good, albeit tongue and cheek at times. There is a very good Hobbs and Shaw joke that ‘Fast and Furious’ fans will appreciate.

Overall, I like the story, the leads have good chemistry and makes me wish they make it out alive to see the next Valentine’s day! This will be a nice addition to the Holiday Horror rotation which I have a list of on Letterboxd if you care to check it out!

Review by: Krystina Alfonso