HEART EYES

Laughs and bloody thrills abound in HEART EYES when two rivals at work are mistakenly targeted by a national serial killer who’s been brutally killing romantic couples on Valentine’s Day in separate cities. HEART EYES serves up just as many laughs as it does gruesome violent attacks, but it also has many “f’ words, so it’s excessive and unacceptable.

The movie begins with the masked killer targeting a man proposing marriage to his girlfriend in a vineyard outside Seattle. A photographer hides in the trees to document the proposal. The killer brutally kills the photographer and the man, but the young woman fights off the killer and runs into the vines.

However, the killer follows her among the vines until she decides to hide in the warehouse where they make the wine. A security guard is no match for the killer, who has a crossbow. The killer finally locates the girl hiding in a grape pressing machine. He turns on the machine to crush her body.

Cut to a jewelry company in Seattle, where Ally McCabe, a twentysomething marketing executive, is getting chewed out by her quirky boss, Crystal, for creating an offensive TV ad about doomed lovers. Ally has become jaded about love since her boyfriend dumped her and found someone new. Crystal orders Ally to work with Jay, a cocky but likeable freelance ad wiz that Crystal’s hired, to come up with a new ad campaign. Ally and Jay just had a run-in at the nearby coffee shop, so Ally’s less than enthusiastic. However, she agrees to meet Jay for dinner later to go over ideas for the campaign.

Jay is late, however. So, Ally gives him the business all during the drinks. She also shoots down all of Jay’s romantic moves. It’s clear that he likes Ally, but Ally’s just not ready for any romance. So, they end up agreeing to leave the restaurant and meet the next morning to go over ad ideas.

Outside the restaurant, though, Ally sees her ex-boyfriend coming down the street with his new girlfriend and fiancée. So, she grabs Jay and lands a big kiss on his lips to make her ex jealous.

Regrettably, however, the Heart Eyes Killer sees Ally and Jay kiss. So, he decides they’re going to be his next target.

The rest of the evening involves Ally and Jay trying to escape the killer’s attacks. Eventually, they decide to turn the tables on the killer, which leads to some exciting and surprising twists and turns.

HEART EYES follows in the footsteps of the SCREAM franchise by giving viewers equal snippets of comedy and horror. However, the director, Josh Ruben, and his three screenwriters use a classic Hollywood comedy as their muse. Thus, at one point the action ends up at a drive-in where the movie screen is showing the classic Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell screwball comedy, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, one of the funniest romantic comedies ever made. In that movie, Cary Grant plays the sneaky editor of a newspaper, Rosalind Russell’s former boss and ex-husband. The editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ex-wife and ace reporter from quitting and remarrying. He offers her $1,000 for her new life with her new husband if she’ll interview a death row convict who’s clearly insane and get him the story that other reporters could not. HEART EYES has a similar tone in its wacky comedy, though the dialogue doesn’t come quite so fast.

That said, the laughs come fast and furious in HEART EYES. Except for the serial killer, all the characters have a comical side to their personalities, in addition to their other idiosyncratic qualities. At one point, the killer frames Jay as the Hearty Eyes Killer, and the police arrest him, handcuff him and interrogate him. Meanwhile, the killer shows up at the police station and stalks Jay, Ally and the two cops questioning Jay. This leads to some comical situations as well as some scary and terrifying ones.

Eventually, the lead characters in HEART EYES decide to risk their lives by luring the killer away from the people at the drive-in and working together to stop him. This scene leads to some final twists, and the movie’s climax takes place inside a Christian church.

Sadly, though, the movie serves up just as many violent, gruesome attacks as it does laughs. It also has many “f” words about 45 or more. Finally, HEART EYES also has some lewd content. The most significant amount of lewd content occurs when Ally and Jay hide from the killer in a hippie van at the drive-in. In the back of the van, a man and woman are having loud sex while Ally and Jay try to get them to be quiet before they attract the killer’s attention.

Happily, HEART EYES has a positive resolution to its serial killer plot and a positive resolution to the romance between the two leads. However, the movie’s violence and foul language are just too excessive and unacceptable.