Heart Eyes (2025) – Romance is Dead… Literally

Rating: ★★★½☆ (3.5/5 Stars)

Released 02-07-2025

Watched 02-15-2025

Reviewed 02-20-2025

Watched in the theater Using Cinemark Movie Club

"You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have someone love you for the beautiful, neurotic mess that you are."

Heart Eyes (2025) is a Valentine’s Day slasher that doesn’t waste time with intricate plotting or deep character development. Instead, it plunges straight into the blood-soaked chaos, offering up a high body count and a masked killer with a penchant for themed carnage. If you’re looking for an emotionally complex horror film, this isn’t it, but if you want pure, adrenaline-pumping mayhem with a holiday twist, you’re in for a treat.

The film follows a group of young adults navigating the usual Valentine’s Day woes, bad dates, unrequited love, engagement, and relationship drama until they find themselves in the crosshairs of the so-called “Lover Killer.” The killer, donning a grotesque heart-shaped mask, slices through the cast with creative, sometimes darkly humorous kills, leaving a trail of blood-drenched roses in their wake. There’s not much effort to build tension or mystery around the killer’s identity, and while a backstory does exist, it’s paper-thin and ultimately irrelevant. The real draw here is the unrelenting pace and the spectacle of holiday-themed murder set pieces.

Where Heart Eyes stumbles is in its script, which barely holds the story together. The dialogue is functional at best, clunky at worst, and character motivations are often as flimsy as a discount Valentine’s Day card. However, that won’t matter much to audiences who are here for the carnage. The kills are brutal, inventive, and gleefully over-the-top, making up for the lack of narrative depth. There’s a self-awareness to the film that helps it go down easier, it knows exactly what kind of movie it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything more.

The cast is serviceable, with a few standouts who elevate their thinly written roles. The film’s final girl played with just the right mix of determination and terror, manages to bring some much-needed tension to the climax. The killer, though not as iconic as some of the genre’s greats, is effective enough, with a chilling design and a few memorable moments.

While it’s unlikely to leave a lasting impression in the slasher hall of fame, Heart Eyes delivers on its promise of a blood-soaked Valentine’s Day massacre. It’s mindless, ridiculous fun that rewards viewers who don’t overthink it. If you enjoy holiday horror flicks like My Bloody Valentine or Happy Death Day, this one is worth a watch just don’t expect to fall in love with the story.