Everyone that knows me knows that my all time favorite cliche is when in the rom-com the lover slowly realizes they really love the person they are with and runs to the airport to catch them while lamenting to confess they really do love the person they have been with in the entire movie. We do have that scene in this but the slasher cliche cuts through it like a knife and it is great. It is a great set-up to what Heart Eyes, directed by Josh Ruben, is all about. It isn’t reinventing the wheel, they are just fixing the axles. 

Written by Phillip Murphy, and veteran screenwriters Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy. Mixing genres like slasher and rom-com is a delicate procedure. Too much rom-com will agitate the slasher fans, too much slasher will agitate the rom-com fans. Heart Eyes does it right by recognizing that the key for it to work is that it is engrossingly entertaining, and a key for it to be entertaining is being self aware. There is an,.. almost wink at the camera for every take in the film. A hybrid of slasher and rom-com but also making cheeky fun at them as well. What does work is not only the killer and their signatures but also the chemistry of the characters that we follow, played by Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding. Veteran Jordana Brewster adds the right flavor to mix as well.  A sound intro, and well paced status quo and we are off to a bankable franchise in the making, as well as potential prequels to come. It also doesn’t hurt to have a catchy promo and holiday gimmick attached to it as well. Any criticism at this point would be nitpicking, overall it just rocks, and of course socks with some creative kills. Great camera work (someone really knows gaffing) and solid editing are at play, but the script is the real deal here. Fresh and familiar. It’s hard not to notice the influence of the Scream films on this. Because it is not just making a slasher rom-com here but also a parody of those films at the same time.  

Heart Eyes has all the makings and ingredients for the next franchise of horror films. If the writing can be sustained it has durability to add to it.  It’s also doing right by letting the critics and fans to promo as well and let the interest of it grow organically. In the right hands it could possibly live a very long time by saying “stay safe, stay single” I say take risks and take a second time seeing it.