Heart Eyes Does One Thing No Horror Movie Has Ever Done Before

This article contains some spoilers for “Heart Eyes.”

The filmmaking team behind the new Valentine’s Day-set slasher movie “Heart Eyes” seems to be rallying around their film with a particular spin on the “see it in theaters!” agenda. Namely, that new horror movie icons (and franchises, naturally) cannot be born if no one goes to see them when they’re brand new. While this is unimpeachably true, it feels important to point out at least one of the reasons why horror fans — traditionally a very loyal and easy-to-please group — have not shown up for one of the several attempts at creating a new horror icon over the last decade and change. 

While some have not been given a fair shake at all (witness the sad story of the bungled, nearly suppressed release of “The Empty Man”), others have either had a pretty lackluster start (sorry, “The Boogeyman”), been too singular to franchise (I don’t think we’ll be seeing “Skinamarink V: The Skinamarinking” anytime soon), arrived too late (the eventual “Thanksgiving” movie finally emerging from “Grindhouse”), or have simply been too reverent and/or reminiscent of other horror icons. This grassroots campaign the “Heart Eyes” people are running has a good deal of merit to it, as the film does feel pretty fresh. Ironically, however, this freshness hasn’t to do with its horror content per se. 

The Heart Eyes Killer (referred to in the film as “HEK,” a nod to the real-life BTK serial killer, Dennis Rader) is essentially a mash-up of Michael Myers and Ghostface: they’re silent, they wear a creepy mask, there may be several of them, they use various devices in creative ways to commit murder, and so on. It’s not even the ostensible concept behind HEK that’s new, either; although the marketing and the film opens with the premise that HEK only kills couples, the film breaks that rule pretty quickly early on. No, the thing that “Heart Eyes” does which no horror movie has done before is mash up the tropes and structure of the slasher movie so completely with the tropes and structure of the romantic comedy, allowing the film to completely fulfill both genres. While a horror movie referencing other horror movies is literally a dime a dozen, this rom-com homage is what makes “Heart Eyes” truly stand out in a crowd.

At first blush, a horror movie mashing up with another genre doesn’t sound new or unique at all. Consider this, however: despite the enormous amount of horror hybrid films, most of them tend to favor one element over the other. The blend of comedy and horror is a well-worn and well-regarded one now (or at least it should be), yet even the biggest luminaries of that cross-pollination tend to be lumped into one category or the other. That’s because most genre mash-up movies are really blends, with various elements from two or more genres stirred into the recipe.

A true mashup is actually pretty hard to come by. Even the most famous genre-bending examples don’t quite hold up to the concept of smushing two complete genre narratives together. For instance, although “Shaun of the Dead” was advertised as a “rom-zom-com” (aka a romantic comedy with zombies), none of the structure or tropes within the film adhere to the classic rom-com; it’s just a story of a romance against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse movie that happens to be hilarious. To point out another example, “From Dusk Till Dawn” is often lauded for combining the gritty crime drama with a gory creature feature. This is true, but the gritty crime drama all but stops once the vampires show up, meaning that the film is less of a mashup and more of a twist.

Unsurprisingly, it’s “Heart Eyes” co-writers Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy who’ve consistently come the closest to genre mashups with their work. Landon’s “Happy Death Day” and “Happy Death Day 2U” successfully kept a slasher movie structure while telling a science-fiction story, while Landon and Kennedy’s “Freaky” included all the classic beats of both a body-swap comedy and an old-school slasher story. When it comes to genre-mashing, “Heart Eyes” takes everything the writers learned with those films and perfects it.

There’s recently been a resurgence for the romantic comedy steadily building, what with box office successes like “Anyone But You” and upcoming festival darlings like “The Wedding Banquet.” In conjunction with this is a growing appreciation of the rom-com tropes, the classic elements that feel so part and parcel of the genre. Last year’s “Twisters” paid homage to some of these elements in a very sly, clever fashion. “Heart Eyes” feels like an extension of that homage, so much so that, were it possible to separate the film’s rom-com story from its slasher horror, it would still work as a complete film.

“Heart Eyes” director Josh Ruben stated during a recent Reddit AMA that some of his most prominent influences on the film were the rom-coms of Penny Marshall (“Big”) and Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle”), and that influence can be seen throughout. Though he didn’t namecheck Richard Curtis, it feels like the “Love Actually” filmmaker’s work can be seen in “Heart Eyes” as well, particularly when it comes to the character comedy between Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding), who meet cute in a Seattle coffee shop when they realize they’ve made the same order (and then go on to bonk each other’s heads several times, recalling a romantic bit in “Scrooged”). When it turns out that Ally and Jay are vying for the same flashy corporate creative job — being the ad campaign manager for a jewelry company — the duo have an excuse to schedule a “work date” on Valentine’s Day, a meeting that is unfortunately crashed by both Ally’s ex-boyfriend and the Heart Eyes Killer.

From there, “Heart Eyes” sees Ally and Jay’s romance develop in classic rom-com fashion, from their playful, flirty banter to private, introspective moments to missed cues, hurt feelings, and even a climactic near-rendezvous at an airport. What’s most impressive is that not only is all of this happening concurrently with their running for their lives from the HEK, but their rom-com story doesn’t take a backseat to the slasher action, nor is it put on pause. Thus, “Heart Eyes” is as much a legitimate rom-com as it is a horror movie, a rare feat.

While the majority of cinematic references within “Heart Eyes” are to other rom-coms and not other horror or slasher movies, that doesn’t mean Ruben and Company aren’t demonstrating their horror bonafides in the film. In various places (including that Reddit AMA and the premiere of the film in Los Angeles, which I was able to attend), Ruben has stated that his biggest influence on the movie isn’t “My Bloody Valentine” or “Scream,” but rather 1986’s “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.” That sequel, written and directed by Tom McLoughlin, was the grand reintroduction of Jason Voorhees into the “Friday” franchise (after his kinda-sorta absence in “Part V”). McLoughlin used the occasion to not only introduce elements of supernatural and Gothic horror into the series but to also take a bit of the cultural onus off the horror sequel (and the “Friday” franchise in particular) by having characters break the fourth wall at times and including an intentional sense of humor. Part of this latter agenda involved writing a very screwball comedy romance for the teen leads of the film, a device which only deepens and enriches a film that could’ve been weighed down with as much junk as Jason finds himself in the end.

Although “Jason Lives” was an important step in the journey to the meta self-reference of “Scream” (McLoughlin alleges that “Scream” scribe Kevin Williamson cites “Jason Lives” as an influence), it’s the quality that makes it not quite “Scream,” but rather something simpler and earnest, which makes its way into “Heart Eyes.” Where the post-“Scream” slasher boom and so many post-postmodern horror movies love to court horror fans by completing the cinematic equivalent of a trivia quiz, “Heart Eyes” is an honest celebration of both holiday slashers and romantic comedies that isn’t fishing for brownie points. So, while “Heart Eyes” may be far from the most original movie ever made, its uniqueness stands out amidst a huge crowd. 

Just like picking that special someone from all the fish in the sea, if you’re on its wavelength, you may fall hard for “Heart Eyes.”