Ghastly vs Cuddly: A Bloody Rom-Com
Heart Eyes (2025)
★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8 out of 10 stars)
Director: Josh Ruben
Producers: James Wan, Ingrid Bisu
Starring: Daisy Edgar‑Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos
“Love can be such a lovely little lie… until it cuts you open.” – Unattributed line from the film
The Review:
I looked long and hard for which review I was going to produce for Valentine’s Day. The terrible truth was every movie I considered seemed way too overdone, so much so that even the idea of reviewing them screamed with staleness. I finally found a couple that I had not seen. When I watched them, what I found was sadly simple, offering nothing to the horror of the holiday. I reviewed one of those films earlier in the month, but once I stumbled across this one, everything abruptly changed. It was a movie that seemed to inspire excitement from the director as well as the actors. It was unexpectedly refreshing. It trumpeted with daring and freshness, renewing my hope with the horrific pretense of a slasher. My expectations were doubly dazzled when it turned out to be a good one. The Valentine’s Day crown had found a horror head to adorn. So, I coronated Heart Eyes as my winning movie and new seasonal champ. So, let’s take a moment to discuss this ruby‑speckled gem.
From its opening frames, Heart Eyes radiates a mischievous theatricality—a kind of playful menace that curls around the edges of every scene like creeping fog. One might even call it deliciously macabre, spoken with a silken voice that relishes every beat of dread. The film’s charm lies in its balance: a slasher that winks while it wounds, a romance that trembles like a candle in a drafty crypt, and a cast that appears to delight in the grand guignol of it all.
Daisy Edgar‑Jones shines—wide‑eyed, vulnerable, but with a streak of iron beneath the satin. Glen Powell, too often the smirking hero, embraces the story’s dark whimsy with a grin sharpened to a razor’s edge. Together, they dance through the plot like lovers at a masquerade, unaware that the masks around them are not masks at all… but faces poised to split with violence.
Director Josh Ruben, clearly reveling in the holiday’s crimson palette, paints the screen with hearts, roses, and arterial sprays in equal measure. The visuals pulse with a morbid romanticism: chocolate‑box sweetness dripping into nightmare. Yet the film never slips into parody; its humor is the kind that slithers up behind you, icy fingers along the spine, and a frying pan bludgeoning against your skull.
What impressed me most was its sincerity and dedication to its own story. So many Valentine slashers lean into hollow cliché, but Heart Eyes gives us characters who feel, fear, ache, and yearn. The horror lands because the romance does too. And when the blade falls, it sings with purpose.
In a landscape of stale seasonal offerings, this film flutters in like an oily-black‑winged-battle-cupid—charming, wicked, and wholly committed to its bloody bouquet. A delightful surprise and a worthy champion for the 31 Days of Halloween’s Valentine’s installment.
If you seek something fearless, sinister, and surprisingly spirited, Heart Eyes may just be for you.