“Heart Eyes,” in theaters this weekend, is a one-of-a-kind accomplishment.
It’s a slasher movie that is just as much a romantic comedy and vice versa. It’s not trying to be either of these things, it just is. Stars Mason Gooding and Olivia Holt have genuine chemistry, so when their meet-cute is interrupted by the Heart Eyes Killer, a serial murderer who has been stalking couples for years, you’re rooting for their continued survival, not the least of which because you want to see their relationship blossom. It’s odd to call a movie with this much arterial spray cute, but it really is cute.
And the movie feels like even more of an accomplishment because it maintains the quirks and charms of its director Josh Ruben, who is making his studio movie debut. Ruben is a veteran of CollegeHumor, the online comedy site, and his two features, “Scare Me” and video game adaptation “Werewolves Within,” showcased an idiosyncratic sense of humor along with an uncanny ability to mix scares with laughs. “Heart Eyes” might be his best film yet. You can imagine finding it at a video store when you are 12 and staying up all night watching it at your buddy’s sleepover – screaming, laughing and having the time of your life.
“Honestly, I had a great deal of freedom,” Ruben said. “All these films, even my first film, my tiny Sundance movie, is political. You have to be diplomatic. You have to be collaborative. Where you have to draw the line is, Am I sacrificing my artistic stamp?” On “Heart Eyes,” though, nobody told him to get more coverage. Or to shoot for more options. The biggest conversation (he is quick to say it “wasn’t even a battle”) was over his use of blue moonlight – and to a lesser degree lens flares.
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Blue moonlight was crucial for Ruben because it’s been in everything from “Jaws” to “Get Out” and “certainly the films that inspired ‘Heart Eyes,’” most notably “Friday the 13th: Jason Lives.” “That’s a massive influence for me next to ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding,’” Ruben said. Still, the question persisted. “Visually, there was a little bit of conversation in that regard, like, Does the light need to be this blue?” Ruben said. “Heart Eyes” was shot in New Zealand, with Ruben taking over much of the crew from Universal’s “Wolf Man.”
“Honestly, I was able to do my own thing. You have to let a filmmaker bring their vision, otherwise you’re going to make something homogenous, that’s forgettable and that’s not how these guys operated. I’m super, super grateful. I hope it always goes this way,” Ruben said. “My producer was like, ‘You know, they’re not always like this, right? It’s not always going to be this way.’ And it was like, ‘Well, I guess, I got to make another one.’”
While the horror stuff was pretty second nature to Ruben, he admitted that the rom-com elements were for him more uncharted waters. “Where I got a little terrified was the sincere rom-com stuff. I was searching, like, how do I how do I do something in that kind of romantic world? How do I do female friendships? How do I do a meet cute?” Ruben said. When vying for the job, he spoke about his love of “Titanic,” “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “The Bodyguard” and “Defending Your Life.” He was drawn to movies he used to watch that were “as heartbreaking as they were genuine, as they were sweet and funny.” (He thinks this take is what won him the gig.)
Ruben also came to another epiphany that would shape “Heart Eyes.” “I realized that the through-line [of those movies] was the acting. And you have to find people that have chemistry,” Ruben said. “Mason Gooding and Olivia Holt met and they got along, and they got along in a way that their electricity just flies off the screen. That is the best case scenario for making a rom-com.” He instructed his production designer, a veteran of James Cameron’s “Avatar” movies, that “there should be a little bit of pink or red in every frame.” There are references to “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Ghost.” And when there’s a brutal murder, there will be a lot of red in the frame.
The character of the Heart Eyes Killer – his trench coat, the bespoke mask and his various tools – are a reference to “Darkman,” Sam Raimi’s 1990 classic that starred Liam Neeson as a scientist who goes mad after being brutally scarred. “I’ve been trying to make a ‘Darkman’ film for about 150 years. I’m obsessed with that horror hero film,” Ruben said. When “Heart Eyes” came around, he realized it could be his opportunity to pay homage to his beloved “Darkman.” “Being able to bring in a piece of my horror hero brain that I was really excited about,” Ruben said. He also loved Jason’s tool belt from “Jason Lives.” An important question drove him: “How can we explore that and make it fun and make it a Halloween costume you want to wear years and years and years from now?”
As for his “Darkman” take, he said he’s pitched it before and isn’t hopeful that he’ll get it, but he loved that “you have, inherently, a horror superhero.” “The fact that you have a character who can play other characters, and who has melting prosthetic skin and super strength and is also inherently going mad in the bowels of a city. There’s just so much opportunity. And I think we need fun horror and joy,” Ruben. Hey, we’d greenlight it.
On “Heart Eyes,” he was working from a concept by Phillip Murphy that was re-worked by writers Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy, who wrote recent slasher favorite “Freaky.” When Ruben came aboard, he said, he brought his “irreverence.” He remembered pitching on “Werewolves Within” and citing “Tremors” and “Arachnophobia” as references. With “Heart Eyes,” he wanted to make an iconic slasher. “Let’s give them light up eyes. Let’s give them retractable arrows,” Ruben remembers saying. “Let’s give them fun, tactile stuff, while also making Heart Eyes a kinky, sexual, inherently erotic killer, as the Valentine’s Day psychopath should be. You try and just bring your stamp that way.”
Since this is 2025 and any horror movie that makes back its budget is almost guaranteed a sequel, Ruben said that he has started thinking about a second “Heart Eyes” movie – and not just because a blood bath at a spa was written but never filmed (it’s ultimately referenced in the final movie but never seen). “You could probably imagine Heart Eyes could crash any rom-com scenario. You could take any rom-com that ever existed and just subvert the thing with a psychopathic, kinky killer coming in and just ruining everybody’s day. Valentine’s Day, public proposals, PDA, it’s all excruciating,” Ruben said. “There’s too much pressure around needing to partner up. I’m very fortunate to have married my best friend. But not everybody has that kind of privilege. And then they rub it in your face. If you didn’t find anyone, sometimes you just want to squeeze their eyes out.”
Gooding’s character is repeatedly referencing a wedding he has to go to. It is easy to imagine him going there, taking Holt and running into his old nemesis the Heart Eyes Killer. “I would love to hear them sing ‘Say A Little Prayer for You,’ but you look across the room and you’re like, Are those red eyes?” Ruben said.
