{"id":4062,"date":"2025-03-01T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T06:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/?p=4062"},"modified":"2025-02-28T19:15:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T01:15:34","slug":"heart-eyes-review-a-tropey-fun-genre-mish-mash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/4062\/arts-entertainment\/heart-eyes-review-a-tropey-fun-genre-mish-mash\/","title":{"rendered":"“Heart Eyes” Review: A Tropey, Fun Genre Mish-Mash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holiday slasher movies are a well-worn genre at this point, having resulted in numerous classics in the genre, from <\/span>Halloween<\/span><\/i> to <\/span>Black Christmas <\/span><\/i>to <\/span>My Bloody Valentine, <\/span><\/i>and for good reason\u2014 in what other subgenre can you see typically cheerful holiday iconography surround scenes of tense cat-and-mouse chases and gruesome, meticulously designed death scenes? There\u2019s an enjoyable irony to the genre that\u2019s granted it enough success that it\u2019s still alive today, which is more than can be said about many horror subgenres. Which leads us to the latest addition to the subgenre in the form of <\/span>Heart Eyes<\/span><\/i>, a horror-comedy slasher which centers around a serial killer who targets couples on Valentines Day. It\u2019s an absurd premise that is fittingly helmed by CollegeHumor alum\/occasional Dropout cast member Josh Ruben in his sophomore film (following up 2021\u2019s <\/span>Werewolves Within<\/span><\/i>, also a horror-comedy). With a legacy of films ranging from top-of-the-genre to good plain fun and a director primed in the world of absurd comedy, <\/span>Heart Eyes<\/span><\/i> seems like it should be another great success, but does it manage to live up to expectations?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer, ultimately, is yes, though that comes with a few necessary clarifications. First off, I may have been a bit misleading when describing what genre <\/span>Heart Eyes<\/span><\/i> really is: yes, it\u2019s a horror comedy, but more specifically, it\u2019s a horror <\/span>romantic <\/span><\/i>comedy,\u00a0 centering on two employees of a jewelry marketing agency (Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, both slasher film alums) who have to run from the \u201cHeart Eyes Killer\u201d on Valentines Day as they continuously try to convince the killer, and themselves, that they\u2019re not a couple. It\u2019s a premise immediately loaded with rom-com cliches, from the rival co-workers forced together in chance circumstances, to a job that forces the protagonists to consider the true meaning of love, to the whole \u201cwill they, won\u2019t they\u201d dynamic of the protagonists, and the film doesn\u2019t even stop there. There\u2019s a coffee shop meet cute, a love lost cynic and a hopeless romantic, a misunderstood kiss, a chance run in with an ex\u2014 in fact, <\/span>Heart Eyes <\/span><\/i>seems set out to hit every genre trope it can, in both the rom-com and slasher genre, which could very well seem hopelessly corny and overdone to some. On top of that, the film often overloads its characters with quirk, from the leads to the best friend characters to the cops who are working on investigating the titular killer\u2019s gruesome acts, which can often feel at odds with the horror side of the film. Ruben just barely makes it work by doing the same with the horror tropes, loading it with all of the long chase scenes, red herring, and third act villainous monologues present in slashers since the first <\/span>Scream <\/span><\/i>film. <\/span>It\u2019s very winking in its knowledge of all of the cliches of slashers and romcoms, and yet totally sincere in its indulgence of both; it\u2019s \u201ccheesy\u201d in the way any good, pure example of genre tropes is, and that leads to an extremely fun example of both genres that isn\u2019t afraid to lean into their most well-worn aspects. The leads are charming, it\u2019s funny, the love story works, the set pieces are creative, and the kills are gnarly\u2014 what more do you really need for a good time?<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holiday slasher movies are a well-worn genre at this point, having resulted in numerous classics in the genre, from Halloween to Black Christmas to My Bloody Valentine, and for good reason\u2014 in what other subgenre can you see typically cheerful holiday iconography surround scenes of tense cat-and-mouse chases and gruesome, meticulously designed death scenes? There\u2019s…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,136],"tags":[264],"staff_name":[166],"class_list":["post-4062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-movies","tag-march-25","staff_name-max-knight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4064,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4062\/revisions\/4064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4062"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=4062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}