Harefooted Halloween: Heart Eyes

What I Liked: Boy do they deliver on the Valentine’s Day theme.  Not only does this take place on the day but everywhere you look there are hearts, flowers, reds, pinks, whites, etc.  The locations are typical romantic/date places too like a fancy restaurant, a winery and a drive-in movie theater.  Not to mention the killer is dolled up with literal heart shaped eyes, a smile and shoots arrows from a mini crossbow sorta like a deranged Cupid.

The concept for this is that all the parts where the killer is attacking should feel like a slasher movie and then all the parts where he isn’t should feel like a romantic comedy.  Well, mission accomplished.  And I have to admit after the initial kills of the opening I got a little caught up in the romance plot that follows.  Ally (Olivia Holt (Totally Killer)) and Jay (Mason Gooding (Scream VI)) have their meet cute in a coffee shop by finding out they share the same overly complicated order.  Then later they discover they work for the same jewelry company (another Valentine-y thing).  Ally is on the verge of getting fired because of her disastrous (but funny) ad campaign depicting famous couples in pop culture dying for each other over true love.  The public thinks it’s too insensitive with the Heart Eyes Killer on the loose, as if Ally could’ve predicted when and where this asshole was going to show up.  Jay has been brought on to save the company and work with Ally to come up with a new marketing strategy.  So naturally there’s friction over the delicate situation despite the two being attracted to each other.  As they get to know each other over the course of the day they start to fall for each other.  A pleasantly classic setup, right?  The thing is this section goes on for a decent amount of time so I temporarily forgot I was watching a horror picture.  And right as I’m wondering what’s going to happen next with these two bam! the killer strikes.  The pacing and execution of this stretch is nicely done.  They caught me with my guard down so I was genuinely surprised when the tone shifts.  Amusingly even when there are lulls in the action, like when Ally and Jay are hiding from Heart Eyes, the film momentarily resumes the romance plot where they start hitting it off again.  The particular way the filmmakers mash these two genres together is clever and successful.  Holt and Gooding have pretty good chemistry which is vital, and the killer is a genuine threat so both halves have impact.

What I Didn’t Like: You kinda need to turn your brain off for this one.  There’s a bunch of silly shit in here that doesn’t track for the sake of making the concept work.  While most of that applies to the horror side with your usual teleporting killer shenanigans and incompetent cops and such, I have to say that the romance side is also a bit creepy if you think about it.  Jay is Ally’s boss and on his first day of work he asks her out on a date under the guise of a “work meeting”.  Not only is Ally pressured into it but Jay doesn’t even know if Ally is single (she actually just got out of a relationship).  Then when they go on the date, sorry “business dinner”, Jay is offput by Ally’s dispirited view of romance and love so he decides to split.  This jerk conduct is meant to make you think he might be the killer.  However, as a consequence most of the time this guy comes off more like a predatory piece of shit than the hopeless Romeo he’s supposed to be.

Overall Impressions: If you can push past Jay’s gross behavior and some of the other nonsense there’s an ok slasher movie in here.  The film doesn’t take itself that seriously which helps a lot.  I appreciate the dedication to the theme and detail put into the romantic comedy parts (questionable as they might be).  And the horror parts are put together fine with plenty of carnage to go around.